We left Lake Tahoe in bright sunshine and headed west over the pass (Echo Summit) en route to Jamestown which is very close to Sonora. We went on the roads, California 50 and 49.They can be best described as dramatic rolling countryside. We passed through a number of historic towns including Sutter Creek where if you removed the cars it would look like the old wild west. We will take pictures of these towns on our return from Jamestown in the direction of Bryce Canyon which is some 700 miles away (Exxon will love us).
In Jackson we stopped for lunch in a layby overlooking two gold mines. This is where the local expression 'the mother lode' was coined.It refers to the very rich seam of gold bearing rock in the mines. The local bank managed over USD 100 milllion dollars of gold back in the 18 hundreds. The mines were deep, very very deep, one of them having a vertical shaft of over 5800 feet . Unfortunately one of the mines had a severe underground fire and over 48 mineworkers were killed, a very sad day for the small town.
It was a very nice journey with plenty of open roads and greenery the time passed very quickly. The evening was spent in historic Jamestown where we had a very nice, but rather expensive dinner in an old Hotel. And so to bed.
