When I was a kid, my family would go camping each summer in California’s gold country. We’d hike to open mineshafts, visit countless museums featuring Gold Rush artifacts, and clamber around decaying miner’s cabins and rusty hydraulic mining equipment that had been abandoned in the foothills. My dad would collect antique square nails (a practice that we later learned was unlawful) and occasionally we’d try our hands panning for gold. My mom would stay back at the campsite, cooking meals, sweeping the tent, and wishing we soon would return to suburbia.

Even as a kid I was impressed by how these relics of the Gold Rush could be seen and touched out in the wild, even after more than a century. To a kid like me in the 1960s, the Gold Rush seemed like ancient history. And now it’s been another half-century since I was a kid! It’s hard for me to explain, but today, as I examined old stone buildings from the 1850s and hillside scars created in the 1860s, I felt a connection with a longer arc of history. The State of California was in its infancy then, and they didn’t call it the Wild West for nothing. We’ve come a long way since we routinely dumped cyanide and mercury into waterways, since we carved into hillsides with powerful water canons, since thousands of miners daily breathed toxic fumes and hundreds of them died in fires and cave-ins. That’s not to say we have no problems today; far from it. But clearly there’s been progress.

California’s Gold Country is a reminder both of how our civilization has changed, and how as humans we’re largely unchanged. There’s a persistent 49er spirit in those small towns that still dot the Mother Lode. You can sense the tenacity, patience, perseverance in your average Amadorian or Calaverasian. Take the owner of a coffee shop named Moke-A-Java in Mokelumne Hill. She told me she opened the place in 2019…just before Covid shut everything down. Somehow she managed to keep the business afloat with mail-order candy sales and catering. Today business is finally picking up, and she’s grateful. She’s a latter-day version of a patient prospector.

There’s also something very soul-soothing about the rolling, oak-covered hills in this part of the state. There’s plenty of space and natural beauty, and no one seems to be in a hurry. Take for example the owner of the B&B where I stayed in San Andreas. He sat in conversation with me through the three-course breakfast he’d cooked for me, then spent half an hour showing me his workshop and his Harley. It was as though nothing mattered more to him than visiting with his guests. You can be sure I’ll be back.

About 10 am I got back on Highway 49 and fired up the driving app I’d purchased specifically for this trip. The idea was to have a knowledgeable guide direct me through a handful of small towns from Angels Camp to Jamestown. While the concept of the guide was a good one, I found it to be a bit clunky and fussy. And not only was the app awkward to navigate (a process which is admittedly complicated on a motorcycle), but the interstitial diary readings by overly-enthusiastic community-theater actors were not my cup of tea. So the app was quickly bagged.

I did learn from the app that Calaveras County gets its name from the Spanish word for “skulls,” a quantity of which were discovered by early explorers along local riverbanks. And at almost the moment I learned that fact my eyes beheld this:

Walking into Howard’s Mystic Saloon is  like entering an ossuary. You’re greeted by a giant skeleton standing just inside the door, and as your eyes adjust to the darkness you notice that all the chandeliers are decorated with skulls and bones. More skeletons hang from the ceiling, and the entire wall behind the wall is covered with black skulls.

I asked the bartender, Ivory, for the story, and she told me the skulls are not meant as a reference to Calaveras County. In fact, the owners (Curtis and Tana Howard) own another skeleton-themed bar in Oakland. At this point a jovial man with a beard and a cowboy hat sitting at the end of the bar said “This place is tame compared to their Oakland place!”

We’ll get to the BOTD shortly, but Murphys (pop: 2,000) was the one stop that didn’t feel authentic to me. At some point they went all-in as a wine tasting destination. According to Wikipedia, Main Street has at least two dozen wine tasting establishments. In between are boutique-y places selling scented candles, panini presses, and other appurtenances that a miner would never recognize.

Murphys is evidently quite prosperous, and I don’t knock their business model. But this is not the Gold Country experience I was looking for.

More authentic are places like Drytown (pop: 186).

During the Gold Rush it was home to some 10,000 souls, and despite the name, it also had 26 saloons. (The name refers to a dry creek.) It burned down in 1857, and never really recovered. But there’s a roadside marker and occasional artifacts among the rolling hills and oak trees.

I also appreciate how Angels Camp (pop: 3,700 and the only incorporated city in Calaveras County) has leveraged its purported role in Mark Twain’s story “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.” The little buggers are everywhere!

Before we get to the BOTD, let me leave you with a couple of photos of yard art I saw a long the way. These people are true artists.

BEER OF THE DAY

Even if you don’t like dark beer, you should try this. It’s aged in bourbon and brandy barrels, and if that doesn’t guarantee a symphony of flavors, it at least delivers a cacophony of flavors. We’re talking anise, black strap molasses, oak, Christmas fruitcake, semi-sweet chocolate, toasted pecans, vanilla extract, cherry sucrets, Worcestershire sauce, and those spent “grounds for your garden” you get at Starbucks. It’s on the sweet side, but there’s just enough hops to prevent it from becoming cloying. Well-carbonated but no head. 11 percent ABV, so if you are riding a motorcycle and find yourself at Howard’s Mystic Saloon shortly thereafter, have yourself a hot apple cider. I give this beer 5 points out of 5.

MAIL BAG