There's Gold in Them Thar Hills!!  In Search of Treasure in Old Gold Country.....

Yey!  Its Labor Day weekend, I have a summer Friday and Monday off, so its high time I got back to doing what I do best - exploring and having new adventures!   Lori and I decided on the spur of the moment the previous weekend that we hadn't done enough (i.e. any) camping this summer, so she suggested visiting a town called Murphys, slap-bang in the middle of old gold rush country!

I'd heard a little about the Gold Rush during other touristy trips - when Dad and I took the boat cruise from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Bay Bridge (I know, I know - I'm very behind on all my blogs, but i'll catch you all up, don't worry!), part of the narration was about how the prospectors would come to SF from far and wide, dock at the harbor and then just abandon whatever boats they arrived in in their haste to get up to Amadour County to search for nuggets!   The Californian Gold Rush officially began in 1849, with the first discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill - hundreds of thousands of people then flocked to the area hoping to pan and mine their way to glory.  This first wave of miners and prospectors were called the "49'ers" - which I guess explains the name of SF's football team!  At first the gold nuggets could simply be picked off the ground (how cool would that be?!), but then as time went on, all the surface gold was collected and it got progressively harder and harder to extract.   By about 1852, the gold rush was pretty much over - but Northern California had been indelibly shaped by the economic and demographic changes it had brought.  If you want more details on the Gold Rush, here's a link to the Wikipedia entry - its all fascinating stuff.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Gold_Rush

Where IS everyone?  

We'd made reservations at this campsite called Gold Country Campground and Resort - we were really surprised that we were able to find somewhere with space just one week ahead of the Labor Day holiday - until we got there and discovered that the whole region was like a gold rush-era Ghost Town because everyone was terrified of the Rim Fire and was staying away.   Wildfires are nothing new and are just part of the natural cycle of birth, death and re-birth in the forest.  However, this wildfire has the terrible distinction of being the fourth largest in modern Californian history, having now burnt an area of 225,000 acres (7.5x the size of San Francisco) in and around Yosemite National Park.  After two weeks, the fire is still only 45% contained and ancient groves of redwood forest are still being threatened.  http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/09/01/20280685-rim-fire-at-225000-acres-as-calif-officials-search-for-cause-of-massive-blaze?lite   The main area of the fire is a good two hours drive north of where our campsite is, so we were in no danger at all - but it was clear that all the reporting of the fire had taken its toll, as our campsite was almost deserted when we arrived on Friday afternoon.

Not that we minded, of course.  Holiday weekends at campsites are usually like one big enormous rowdy creche, with packs of small children roving around unsupervised, yelling their heads off and screaming (this is why you should ALWAYS pack ear-plugs on a camping trip), so to not have to grumpily endure that was a bonus!

The bar at Murphys Historic Hotel

Anyway, the drive from SF took longer than usual as we had to detour via the San Mateo bridge (further south) as the Bay Bridge was closed.  They are on the verge of opening up the new bit of bridge that's been built to be earthquake-compliant, replacing the current non-compliant bridge that spans from Treasure Island to the East Bay.  It will re-open on Tuesday at 5am, so i might just have to take a tootle across and see what it looks like.   Its supposed to be beautiful - as it should be, given the billions and billions of dollars its cost to build!   We set off around 11am and, given check-in at the campsite wasn't until 1pm, decided to first visit the town of Murphys for lunch.

We radically underestimated how long the drive would take - even though we only stopped briefly for gas once, we didn't reach Murphys until almost 3pm!!  I think it was because the roads were rather twisty and steep, so it was slow-going through the gold-filled mountains - with the 30mile route between Pine Grove (where our campsite was) and Murphys taking about an hour.  By the time we finally arrived, we were starving and busting for a pee, so we parked up double quick and hustled our way to the Murphys Historic Hotel where we'd decided to have lunch.

It was worth the wait.  The bar was charmingly ancient and full of interesting characters, including our barman who was probably no older than 21, but was extremely confident, bordering on cocky that we both appreciated and got annoyed by in equal measure ("gosh, such self-assuredness in one so young" and "he told us we didn't need bread, the arrogant git - can you believe that?").  But the food was good and very welcome, so all was forgiven.  The hotel has been there for aeons and is supposedly haunted but, alas, we didn't see anything untoward (other than a very scary leopard-print chiffon shirt one of the cougars at the bar was wearing), so no paranormal activities to report, I'm afraid!

Camping!!  Gadgets!  Tents!!  No kids!

After our late lunch, we poked around the hotel for a bit before waddling out and heading back on the road, towards our campsite.  As long as we arrived by 6pm, we'd be fine to make camp before it got dark, so we had plenty of time, stopping to buy the camping essentials of wood, starter logs, matches and ice along the way.  Obviously they don't get many Brits Round These Parts as the lady in the gas station store had no idea what I was talking about when I asked her if they sold firewood and matches - I repeated myself a couple of times to increasingly puzzled looks ("MATCHES", "WOOD") before her mate stepped in to translate into a suitable American accent.  Fortunately, I'd packed enough supplies for the whole weekend, so a big food shop wasn't needed else we might have been there some time (yey for car camping!).

The DEET inventory looking healthy
 - illuminated by one very foxy looking lamp.

It didn't take very long at all to set up camp, although my spare MSR tent (the little yellow one) that Lori was borrowing was an absolute be-yatch to set up!  I don't remember it being that tough last time!  I'm still in love with my Colemans tent - its so easy to put up, there's plenty of space for a blow up double mattress inside and it has lots of cool zippy pockets inside to store things in and then forget where you put them.  Bonza.  I also was geeking out on my new LED lantern (a Costco gift certificate purchase) which has FOUR DETACHABLE LAMPS!!  A table lamp with built-in little mobile lights for those scary darkness trips to the loo - brilliant.  I had a fab time pootling about, setting up the camp kitchen - both of us were still so full from lunch, there wasn't any desire to do any cooking, so we were content with a couple of sandwiches washed down with a bottle of icy-cold cider.  All terribly Famous Five.  As night fell, we got the campfire cranking, so it was a very chilled out way to end the day - sitting out by the campfire, listening to the crackle of the flames as you looked up at the stars.  Bloody perfect.  This is why I live in California...