shewhomust | After the Gold Rush

There've been several times in the last few days when I almost posted something here: but what would I post about? The fall-out from the election, the post-election campaigning, has been even more depressing than the election itself, and I'm torn between having altogether too much to say about it, and not wanting to talk about it at all. There is a dentistry crisis: everyone's teeth are fine, thanks, but we are growing weary of the administrative ineptitude of our dentist. This is pretty much resolved, but I'm not in the mood to talk about it. We go on holiday the day after tomorrow (tomorrow, now, due to this post being longer than intended!), and that's a good and happy thing, but also a stressful one: so much still to prepare, I should be ironing, cleaning my boots, checking the weather forecast (which is not so good) instead of dilly dallying on LJ...

So here's a post about last summer in California, and our trip to Amador County. Route 49 (someone was being clever with that designation) leads through a sequence of little towns, established during the Gold Rush, almost abandoned, making me feel as if I'd wandered onto the set of a Western> Here's the I.O.O.F. Hall in Mokelumne Hill (which is in Calaveras County, we hadn't reached Amador yet):

We would have stayed for lunch in Mokelumne Hill, but the only place open was the historic library, so we trawled through the second hand books for sale on the porch, and then pressed on to Jackson. This was more of a living town, and I went first to Wells Fargo to draw some cash: I never get tired of that, that Wells Fargo, that mythic organisation from the black and white cowboy shows, is somewhere I can draw cash - with a little difficulty, as I failed to persuade the cashpoint outside to work for me, but the counter staff were charming and helpful, and recommended the sandwiches at the National Hotel for lunch. I also managed to buy a replacement strap for my watch, and was gleeful to have contrived this small and necessary purchase as a most un-souvenir-like souvenir.

This brought us to Sutter Creek, our base for the next couple of nights: I've already posted about the evening we spent tasting wine there.

The next morning we took the winding road up through the trees to Volcano. It was a surprise to be in woodland, after driving through the open hills for so long, and the foliage was beginning to turn to its autumn colours. Volcano itself was the prettiest of the Gold Rush towns we visited. The greenery helped:

Some public-spirited people had produced lots of information about the various buildings, and we enjoyed our stroll around town: we'd have enjoyed visiting the inn, too, which had been recommended by the newspaper article which had brought us here, but it - like the Gallery - was closed, so we moved on.

This was probably just as well: it gave us more time at Indian Grinding Rock State Historic Park. We'd planned to take a walk, but spent longer than we had expected looking round the museum. I loved the baskets: you read about Native Americans using baskets for functions where others might use pots, and I'd always had trouble picturing this, but now I saw how densely the baskets were woven, it made more sense. The shapes were so pleasing, too, and the geometrical patterns. I was charmed, too, by the dancing clothes, the feathered head-dresses and capes designed to emphasise the wearer's movements: a belt hung with little rectangles of iridescent shell looked for all the world like a morris sash. Then out to the grinding rock itself:

pitted with holes formed by people grinding acorns into flour, year after year. That's an oak beyond the rock, quercus lobata, the valley oak - something else I'd been picturing wrong: these are not our oak trees. Here's one of those grinding holes close up:

We followed the Northern Trail past the reconstructed Miwok village, which was as interesting for more of those wonderful trees as for the bark houses, and beyond, for a pleasant woodland walk. After which we were ready for lunch. Nothing better presented itself, so we pulled into a shopping precinct on a bypass, and went into a supermarket which didn't look at all promising. Is this a cultural difference we should be aware of? I'd expect to find interesting picnic ingredients in small shops in the historic centres of towns, but we'd drawn a blank there (I don't remember seeing any food shops, let alone the sort I was looking for): supermarkets had counters which would compile the sandwich or salad of your choice, and provide disposable cutlery to eat it with, too.

We took the resultant picnic to Story Winery, the vineyard furthest up the Shenandoah valley toward the Sierra, and, we latesr learned, the one closest to the recent Sand Fire. They have the coolest URL (Zin.com), but seemed to be majoring on the Mission grape, now more of a historical curiosity than a major varietal - but where else would we have a chance to taste it? So we drank a glass of Miss Rosé with our lunch, overlooking the old vines, ignored by a very superior cat and a busily tapping woodpecker. From the subsequent tasting, we bought a bottle of Mission 'port', which we brought home with us (and drank at the end of our Christmas lunch): it was one-dimensional, but rich and sweet, and we were happy to have tried it.

One last tasting: Turley's tasting room had been recommended to us the previous evening, probably at Scott Harvey. If we had set out to find two completely contrasting tastings, we could not have done better. Story were rural, laid back, traditional; Turley were slick and professional. Story poured a series of wines, and invited us to enjoy them; at Turley we were offered a choice of selections, and then talked through them with charm and expertise. Good wines, enjoyable wines, but you'll notice that we bought an oddity from Story, and that's all.

We dined at Susan's Place in Sutter Creek, which I include mainly because I'm pleased with the photograph of its over-the-top fairy lights. What I remember of our meal there is that by 8.20 pm we were the last customers in the place, and the staff were very obviously closing up around us. Anyway, whether I recommend it or no, you're too late: it has closed for good.

The post should end there, but I can't resist adding that my notes for the following day begin: "Everyone wants to ask about the Scotland independence vote." Next time you hear from me - internet access permitting - I'll be in a Scotland that's just had another interesting vote. What goes around comes around.