Vacation : jim and Yun : 2011

Day 9

2011-05-09T00:50:00.000-07:00

Day 9. We woke to see that Stateline (and in fact the entire lake) had been snowed it. The worst case scenario, we'd be stuck in this hotel room for another day.

Best case scenario, we'd leave around 11am when the roads opened up.

Which is what we did.

Here's what clear roads look like near Tahoe and Stateline.

This would turn out to be our last day on the road as we cleared an insane number of miles (582 according to google). We even stopped to take pictures along the way at various points (as you'll see).

I always knew the route home would be unplanned. Would I go through death valley? Spend an additional day visiting Bodie, CA? Would we explore the Nevada desert? And so on.

The road to Minden was uneventful, where I stopped at a gas station, talked with the attendant, bought a map, and planned the route home.

With only 80 empty slots left in our digital camera, we didn't take any pictures until Topaz Lake. It was sadly very wet and cold, and this is the best picture we could get.

There's a casino on the Nevada side of the lake with a great slipper platter. We had one and got another to go. Really good stuff. From there, we headed right back out and toward Yerrington.

This was a great part of the drive. We saw lots of farmland and some of these hills would open up to reveal some amazing landscapes.

Just before reaching Yerrington, the rocky hillside splits open and the road cuts right inside of it. We didn't get a lot of pictures of it, because we were in awe the entire time we drove in between the rocks.

After Yerrington there was a whole lot of nothing for many many miles.

And then there was Walker lake.

And nothing again for many many miles.

And even more nothing, interrupted by some whoa moments.

Eventually we would reach Highway 6 and cut into the best terrain of the trip.

I honestly can't find any pictures of it, but that could mean we were just in awe the entire time. We even spotted two wild horses along the Nevada side of the 6. This one shows sort of what I'm talking about, but doesn't do it justice.

Once in California, we reach Mt. Montgomery. It may have been a town at some point…

… but what remained was two motels and a burned out… something. This was probably one of the coolest moments of the trip.

Finally, as we descended from Mt. Montgomery and down into the valley, we saw this.

You're welcome.

The next few hours would be spent in a narrow strip of flat valley between two mountain ranges (the east Sierras to the right of us and the XXX to the left).

After Bishop, we found a number of camp grounds on the West side of the road, none of which were open. This was the light bulb moment that we would be driving all the way home today, instead of camping one more time.

Aberdeen did not look inviting. So, we got back on the highway and discovered… well… the most somber moment of the trip.

Half-way to Lone Pine is the Manzanar National Historic Site. I didn't know it was along the 395 and I didn't expect to stumble upon it.

It was a “wow” moment.

The first thing you see is the watchtower.

Then you begin the driving tour through the park. There's no one there.

It's empty. Somber. Morose. Very very sad.

Even my Korean wife understood just how ugly a thing this event in human history was for America.

I don't really have words to describe it. And I don't want to.

These would be the final photos of the trip.

After Manzanar, it was dark. There wasn't anything to see or photograph, but I drove through the night, stopping south of Lone Pine to buy some iced tea. While we were inside, we found a discount rack of books on CD. We selected Vegas Rich, by Fern Michaels. Oh yeah. It was that kind of drive home.

Day 8

2011-05-08T20:47:00.000-07:00

Day 8. I hate waking up in Casino Hotels. The fake air is dry and gross. And I never feel fully rested. Yun and I left the massive room behind, checked out, and started on the road to Virginia City, a place we'd only heard about because of Mel (the old man from South Lake Tahoe).

The road up was great. Yun didn't like it, but I loved it. Half-way up is Geiger Peak, named for the man who invented the Geiger Counter. I've never really seen anything like it. It's a combination camp, vista point, look-out, and meeting point for mule trains that came into the area. This was called Thorp Point. A little more exploration may have revealed more locations, but this looked like a full day of hiking to see it all.

We lost about an hour exploring and Yun wouldn't go to the peak. So all the pictures of the top are from me. Just typing this now reminds me how scary it was up there. I'm a little weak in the knees thinking about the heights.

Here's what Virginia City looks like when you first arrive from the Northern Route (we would end up taking the Southern Route out), replete with dashboard and wipers.

We found parking as soon as we could, took the 20 minute tour of the town (best $5 ever), walked the entire length of the main road, we visited the gambled, bought amazing BBQ and jerky, and finished off the trip with a visit to the world famous graveyards of Virginia City (there are 13 total, but we couldn't get to all of them). We took nearly 100 pictures while walking the town. We can't show you all of them, so here's the best of them. In short, this was a really good day of our trip.

The road out of Virginia into Carson City was much easier and faster than the hill climb in. We saw the small town of Gold Hill, which would be fun to explore if we ever come this way again.

On route, I called ahead to hotels.com for a room. This was the only night on the trip I didn't plan where we might crash. Carson City was an obvious choice, since it was now about 530pm as we left Carson City.

Some confusion on the reservations, however, led us to Stateline, instead, where we found the best room of the trip. Seriously. Look at it.

With the best view... (see Day 9).

Along with more incredible views of the lake.

Day 7

2011-05-07T18:04:00.000-07:00

Day 7. Not as cold as the previous morning in Tahoe. Yun and I showered, ate some last bit of camp food and headed to Truckee, Ca with some advice from her friend.

Her very very wrong friend. (See below)

The drive to Truckee followed along the West side of the lake again, taking us over the waffer thin road between the two lakes.

We stopped about 10 miles up on the "left-hand" side and hiked for about a 1/2-mile in. Just to get some good pictures.

The highway around the lake took us north through some gorgeous landscape where rivers feed into the lake. But we failed to get any good pictures of the area.

Truckee was only about an hour away and we started looking for Burger Me, almost immediately. [Link] Sadly, the rest of the town sucked. And when I say sucked, I mean… what a waste of potential.

Truckee lies near Donner Pass and many of the old buildings still remain. It's only one of 13 California Tourist centers in the state, welcoming people the area. And yet, nothing about the place looks or feels rustic. Every angle of every building is plastered with special parking signs, power lines, poles, lights, and every modern contrivance you can imagine. Even the cemetery was closed.

I mean, what the what?

We don't have a single good picture of Truckee. So. Neither do you.

Burger Me was fantastic. But that's all.

We moved on and drove to Nevada, where we saw some more AMAZING terrain near the border. Some amazing stuff we hadn't seen before.

You can see old mining areas in some of the pictures and the railroad line that cuts through the mountains into Northern Nevada.

We eventually reached Sparks, NV. A short drive altogether, but I was eager to get a real shower and a real bed. We stayed in a hotel room that is bigger than our apartment. The John Ascuaga's Golden Nugget. [Link] This picture is only a fraction of the room. The bathroom was bigger than our living room. Seriously.

We rested many hours, hit the slots, had horrible Chinese food (again), and tried one of the best burgers I've ever had, the "Awful, Awful." And of course, caught up on lots of Food Network watching.

The big days were yet to come.

Day 6

2011-05-06T20:41:00.000-07:00

Day 6. Yun and I woke from the cold with frost on the outside of our tent. There was some leftover wood, so I made a quick fire, warmed some water, made Yun coffee, and then showered.

We headed out into town to explore. Neither of us had been here before, so we just started driving. Yun found a place on her phone to eat. It was a rustic-looking 50s style diner. I mistakenly ordered a waffle and got a giant Eggo™, when I really wanted a big soft Belgian waffle. Bacon made the pain go away, however.

Back on the road, we headed east into Nevada to the town of Stateline — which I think makes for about 20 towns in Nevada called Stateline. As soon as you cross the border, there's the door to the Harrah's staring at you. But we don't really gamble and this trip wasn't about feeding the slots.

So, we drove on, hitting the town of Zephyr Cove. We pulled off into what I think was a state park and took some pictures. Well. Yun took some pictures.

This is the view of the lake from our edge of the cove.

Back on the road, now heading north around the lake, we snapped a few more shots. Er. Yun did.

Once we reached King's Beach on the north side of the lake (which took about 30 minutes of driving to reach; it's a big lake), we stopped for even more pictures.

After King's Beach, the highway starts heading back south again, around the lake. Where we stopped for… you guessed it… more pictures.

This next picture is one of my favorite from the trip. Gorgeous composition. Damnit. I just complimented my wife on a public blog.

There was still more to see as we drove down through very rich vacationing neighborhoods. One of the town's was called Homewood. How very uncreative.

Here's the side of the road on the west side of the lake.

And here's a stream that feeds into the lake.

Here's a pile of rocks.

There's some hiking trails back in there. I wish we'd planned better, because I love to hike and there's got to be some gorgeous terrain in there.

And here's some snow.

We stopped one the side of the road about 20 times while driving along the west side of the lake, taking photos everywhere. There's dozens of pictures from Tahoe alone. And the day isn't even over. I'm only really showing you the best of the best.

Except this one.

Yun read on her phone about a place called Vikinghome. which rests on the nape of Emerald Bay. It was along the way, so we drove there next, parked, and began our 1-mile long hike down to the lake (and maybe 500-600 feet vertical).

Along the trail we took ~~even more~~ great pictures. This one was taken from the top of the trail.

Yun tried several times to get a picture of this bird. This was one of the successful attempts.

And here's another of the Lake from along the trail.

The funniest part of the hike was this couple that had brought their dog along. First, he passed us on the trail, chasing everything in site and generally have more fun that the people who were PAYING to be there. Then at the lake, two geese had decided to rest near the water and this dog wasn't having any of that. Yun and I watched for about 10 minutes as the dog lept into the water (more than once), paddled after the geese, and then returned to land, only to bark and chase the birds some more.

Of course, we have no pictures of the dog in any fashion.

But we do have some of Vikinghome, which is lake Tahoe's version of Hearst Castle. Basically, a wealthy Norwegian woman decided to build a house on Emerald Bay that reminded her of home. Hence the name.

We, of course, arrived out of season and so there were no tours, and nothing was open. So we just walked around the grounds, exploring.

Here's some pictures of it.

One last trek to the river behind Vikinghome…

…and it was back up the trail toward the car.

Word of advice to hikers. Do not go hiking on an empty stomach (it had been hours since we ate). Do not go hiking without water (we brought nothing with us). And do not descend down 500 vertical feet without planning your trip back UP.

It took about an hour to climb out of the area and back to the car. At which point, we realized that food and drink were an imperative. And we were still 30 minutes from South Lake Tahoe.

Nonetheless, Yun located a 4-star Chinese restaurant back in Tahoe where we dined on what could only be described as rat meat in imitation plum sauce. How this place got four stars is anyone's guess. [Link]

In general, the food on the trip was really good. But one of the problems with going to one-horse towns for vacation… you take what you can get.

After eating the remains of someone else's meal, we picked up some ice, a cork-screw (we bought wine back in Drytown — Day 3), and some tea, before realizing South Lake town has a Raley's.

For the uninitiated, Raley's is a super-duper-market unlike anything you've ever seen before. To give you an idea of what Raley's is like. Imagine a Walmart, devoid of the mutants who work and shop there. Then fill it with things you actually want to buy. Then add a few things you never expected to find at a super market, like lumber, wine casks, and bait. Oh yes. Bait.

Then, place the store right across the highway from the campsite.

Nirvana.

It was 5pm by the time we got back to the campground — we were gone THAT long — I made a fire, heated up some snacks, took more showers, rested, and went to bed. Somewhere in there we charged the phone batteries and camera batteries, but it's all a blur.

Next stop. Truckee.

Day 5

2011-05-05T01:30:00.000-07:00

Day 5. I woke up early (can't really sleep in at a camp site) and my wife discovered a row of pimples below my lower lip. I don't get pimples and here I earned a half-dozen little white heads. Weird. Pop. Pop. Shower. Pop. Breakfast on the fire. Fantastic dehydrated breakfast in fact.. Pop. Pack up the camp. On the road.

Pop.

The next four hours would be spent in Placerville, one of the coolest towns on the trip. First we found a coffee shop and hid in the back reading books about Tuscany while the camera battery recharged in the wall socket behind the coffee shop couch.

No reason.

After sitting for about an hour enjoying iced tea and muffins, we walked up and down the main street, which has so much cool going on, I could write about 5,000 words on Placerville alone.

But I won't.

The highlights.

We visited a couple of antique shops. One was creepy and one was filled with a trio of funny old ladies. We bought a few odds and ends. About $100 worth, actually. Stuff we had no room in the car for, but stuff we couldn't pass up. The coolest find, was a 1889 letter from an insurance company to a Samuel L. Adams. Not sure if there's a relation, but how cool is that.

Framed it and gifted it to my buddy Mike when I got home.

We had lunch and the creepily nice waiter was constantly check in on us and hitting on my wife. Considered leaving her there with him. But she had the GPS, so I changed my mind. We walked up and down the street and finally ended up at the Museum, which is about the size of our apartment. The volunteer was a nice old lady and I bought a couple of books from her, but we couldn't understand a word she was saying because of her halting and breathless manner of speaking.

The Museum was a little disappointing. I wanted to know more about the history of the town and half the museum was about the pre-history of the area. Meh. Still cool. After all, it's nick-named Hangtown. The hanging tree is still there. I thought Yun took pictures inside, but apparently not. So all we have is these three from the street.

Sometime around 1pm we got on the road and started heading East. It came as no surprise that we were heading to Tahoe at this point. While Yun never knew the next place we'd be going, she had guessed Tahoe among the places we might visit.

And Hwy-50 only really goes to one place.

Remember all those grade school films about summer vacations and the wilderness of California? Well that's what Hwy-50 looks like. Exactly. Even down to the grainy film texture. Mile after mile of some of the most amazing trees and mountains I've ever seen. And I used to live in Eureka. There was snow on the sides of the road, even. We really couldn't have picked a better time to visit.

As an aside, I peed in this snow.

The river running alongside the highway was gorgeous. We stopped many times to take pictures and let faster moving cars pass us. We were like that old couple with a giant trailer. Except no trailer.

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

I'm kind of jealous of how good a photographer Yun is. Considering I'm the creative one in the marriage, I should be a good photographer. But instead, I'm not patient enough to compose pictures as well as she can. [And this is with a crappy $200 camera. We really need something high-end.]

Of course they're not all high-end shots…

We reached Tahoe around 3pm and found the campground. It's half RV Park and half camp ground. And once again, I've stolen pictures from their website. [Link]

We had our pick of sites (there were no tents the first night) and set up near the showers. We did some laundry (oh god was the laundry room awful), charged the camera battery some more, and made a fire. I cooked two bags of Trader Joe's "curried chickpeas in a bag" in the boiling water. Best $1.49 ever. Well. $2.98. I'm becoming quite the camper. Yun never had to make a fire. Never had to set up the tent. Never had to do anything.

Why did I even bring her?

We watched some DVDs in the car before it got dark. Then we watched some more in the tent. And then we dozed off, wondering if bears would eat us.

Note: It got down to 33 degrees at night and we left the windows of the tent open. So cold. Frost on the tent when we woke up. But that's Day 6. Hey. You're reading ahead.

Day 4

2011-05-04T23:58:00.000-07:00

Day 4. Once again, we woke early, but breakfast was scheduled at 8am, so we packed up the car, waited a little, and had our blintzes and cold sausage in the main dining area of the aforementioned bed and breakfast. Our host was again a little cold. But we moved on. The roads were gorgeous as we drove north through Plymouth toward El Dorado.

Sadly, we were up so early, that nothing in Plymouth or El Dorado was open. I missed out on Poor Red's BBQ in El Dorado. I blame my wife. [Link]

Placerville was the next stop. In an attempt to find a place to use the internet, we discovered that the high sierra has never heard of internet cafes. Next vacation: Smart Phones. I knew that we would return to Placerville on Day 5, so we didn't stay long and headed north to Lotus where our campsite waited for us.

Arriving so early that we couldn't check in, Yun and I headed up to Cool, CA passing through Pilot Hill, as town of 6 and a half people. The old Bayley House Grange Hall is located there, with another "You are Here" marker indicating the Where's Waldo nature of the California park system.

This is as close as you are allowed to get to the Bayley House (not to be confused with the very interesting on in Massachusetts). [Link]

Cool is a strange little town located somewhere between nowhere and nowhere else. It felt like a town built specifically for the granola crowd that drives Suburu's and buys carbon credits. While the population was smaller than my apartment, the town had an amazing supermarket with more options than the entire town of Placerville (see Day 5).

We did stop in Cool long enough to eat lunch, shop for wood and snacks, and argue about which bag of ice we should buy. For lunch, I had a pork sandwich at the local BBQ. My wife ate my bag of chips that I threw at her in the car. We bought iced tea, if you care, and the cooler required two 7-lbs. bags of ice.

Continuing north (in order to kill some time), we found two cool places to pull over on the side of the road. The first was a place for people to go down river and had a nice little hiking area. Here are some pictures of the river from our walk.

We did not drive all the way to Auburn, but we did stop at this little intersection overlooking the Northfork River. Clearly it was a place the locals used to throw their beer bottles into when they were done "intertubin' it." That didn't stop it from being amazing to look at.

My ~~retarded~~ lovely wife failed to charge the camera battery, however, and we have no other pictures from Day 5.

Seriously, can you believe that?

We drove back to Lotus, camped along the Southfork River and cooked noodles over the campfire. Yun ran away from some geese (oh yes), and I had to do most of the camp set-up. In general this was the coolest f***ing campsite ever and since we were 20 feet from the river, we froze our asses off.

I loved it.

Too bad we don't have any pictures of it. I had to steal this one from their website.

This is really close to our campsite.

Next time we visit up here, I'd love to check out this campsite. We ended up there by accident before finding our real campsite. And while our was awesome, this one felt really rustic. [Link]

Day 3

2011-05-03T23:19:00.000-07:00

Day 3. Yun and I were up early again. Using our 10% off coupon for coffee around the corner from the Day's Inn in Sonora, we walked down the main street of a very very cool little town. Sadly, nothing but coffee was open at 6am, so we packed up and headed out, looking for the breakfast place the barista at Sonora Joe's recommended. We either missed it, or he's a liar. Either way, we took a cool little two lane road out of Sonora toward Angel's camp, stopping at Jackass Hill to see the Mark Twain cabin.

The road up to the hill was short, but ranches lined both sides of the road, one of which had an emu and another had two peacocks. The view from the top was pretty sweet.

However, like all of the parks and historical landmarks on the trip, there was no one there and the gate was nothing more than a carabiner snapped closed through the loops in a rusty chicken-wire fence.

From Jackass Hill, we hit Carson Hill which was a pathetic little rock and bus stop. We took a picture, which we won't bore you with.

From there we reached Angel's Camp and Altaville. Neither town was open for anything, but clearly Angel's Camp would have been a fun place to explore during the "peak season."

Around 9am we reached San Andreas, which would prove to be the jackpot of the day. We got a huge breakfast, visited the museum, spoke with a cool curator, climbed up Pioneer Cemetary, and got scared off the private property that now claims Chili Gulch. Seriously, everything in the Sierra's has a no trespassing sign. It's very welcoming.

The museum was home to the jailhouse and courthouse of Old San Andreas, and included the history of the region, Black Bart's capture and arrest (he was held in the San Andreas jail), and there's even an unexcavated dungeon underneath everything (pictured here).

And Black Bart's jail cell is here.

Spooky Korean woman not included.

Among the sundries in the Museum were a few odds and ends…

From San Andreas, we went to Pioneer Cemetery, just outside of town. You have to walk through someone's private ranch to get to it, but it is a state landmark. This time we walked through two chicken-wire gates, closed tightly with twisted coat hangers.

Chili Gulch was just down the road from there. As you can see, it's amazing.

After Chili Gulch, we hit the town of Jackson, which was so much cooler than Jamestown. Jackson has a lot of cool history and the main street is lined with antique stores. We spent a number of hours in Jackson, but forgot to take pictures while we were there. We did buy a few keepsakes and I got a great garlic hot dog. The woman we bought the skeleton keys from recommended that we stop at the mines in Sutter Creek. So we did.

We even took the 1-hour tour underground for $17.50 each. Totally worth it. Our guide was entertaining and a real miner,. Fourth generation he says. We learned a lot about the mining process and the local terrain; the road coming into the mine was called Green Bean Pass because green beans grew so well in the region. How clever.

We hung around for a little while after, checking out the gift shop, but we didn't buy anything. Flecks of gold floating in water for $3. What do they take me for?

Then, we drove north from Sutter Creek to Drytown and Plymouth (we were too early in Amador City to check in). We took a couple pictures of Plymouth, which was really quaint, but boring, and then stopped back at the winery in Drytown where we bought three bottles of wine, but took no pictures. Anyone want to see the wine?

After drinking our fair share of wine, I got behind the wheel of the car and drove the .88 miles through Drytown (seriously, it's just two buildings), back to Amador City. We sat down on a bench outside one of these buildings and just watched the lack of traffic go by.

We took pictures of the seven-building town and read up on the history of what remains. One building was up for sale. This one in fact.

This museum was closed, because it was a weekday. Coincidentally, there's no mention of this place on the internet. I can just imagine that six or seven treasures waiting inside to be discovered.

Eventually, we checked into an awesome bed and breakfast — the Imperial Amador (which was supposed to be haunted, but we stayed in the suites up on the hill so we missed out on the ghosts). The Amador is run by a couple, but we only met the woman who I don't think understood the concept of hospitality. Not a mean woman, just a very very cold one. [Link]

Here's our room, before we trashed it.

The room did come with a VCR (that's right, a VCR) and there were about 50 movies to choose from in the hallway. I recall starting to watch Mothman Prophecies, but we switched to Lethal Weapon 4 (what is wrong with me?), and some inane comedy that escapes me now.

If you care, I was kind enough to rewind.

Day 2

2011-05-02T10:58:00.000-07:00

Day 2. Yun and I were up by 6am and the "free breakfast" from the hotel was merely a muffin and orange juice. Rather lame. But I was eager to get on the road, so we gassed up and headed out on 145 toward Yosemite, where the highway intersects with the 41. From there, we would go north to Oakhurst (nothing to see there), where our trip toward Yosemite would no longer be "toward" Yosemite (thus, finally throwing Yun off the trail).

And this is where our trip really begins.

The road was picturesque and we pulled off at a few points to get some pictures.

Along Highway 49, Mariposa was our first stop. But we got there before the museum was open, so we walked the grounds, took some pictures and got back on the road. Yun didn't take as many pictures here as she should have, but I can attest that she was overwhelmed by how cool is was to just step into this historic town.

From Mariposa, we back-tracked one mile to Mormon Bar and then along a mangled and unmaintained road called "The Old Hwy" that cut back through farms and ranches until it bisected Hwy 140.

From there, another unmaintained "country road" lead to a dirt road which led to the Indian Gulch cemetery of about maybe 20 headstones. It's still an historic California landmark, but good luck finding it on any map.

We took over a dozen pictures of the cemetery. If you're into that sort of thing, let me know and I'll post more.

After leaving Indian Gulch, the road takes you through something called a "critical environmental area" which you could camp in, but was clearly a place they didn't want you bothering. Mixed messages to be sure. The road lasted for only three miles through this area, but it was obviously very different from the surrounding areas. Sadly, it looks like our digital camera deleted the pictures we took here.

From there we drove to Hornitos, a town you would miss if you took a second to sneeze. We stopped for more pictures, visited the only business in town (an Antique shop), and drove north toward Quartzberg, which is completely gone now. Any websites telling you to visit Quartzberg should be ashamed.

Hornitos is known for the original Ghirardelli factory, which is abandoned. [I presume chocolate lovers drive all the way out here to see this place.]

The name, Hornitos, comes from the Spanish for "little ovens" as this town was built by Mexicans in the 1800s who were driven out of Quartzberg. We were unable to find the cemetery, mostly because we didn't know to go look for it. But we did find the world's creepiest windmill. If you ever heard this thing in the dark and didn't know there was a windmill there, your bones would chill. I am sure of it.

After Hornitos, we drove to Snelling for gas and food, passing Merced Creek along the way. And while Snelling was nothing to remark about, the road to Snelling was very interesting. Here's a picture of Merced Creek from the bridge.

North of Snelling is La Grange. This could have been a great place to stop. But…

It's clearly a small town where the people resent that there is an historic landmark in their town (i.e. visitors).
The museum is only open three days a week. So, Monday at 1pm is a bad time to explore. Information like this before you head out on a road trip is not essential and probably defeats the purpose of a spontaneous trip, but if you're planning to visit the Ghost Towns of the Gold Rush era, you've got a lot of planning and research to do, because the California Parks system is completely underfunded and there's no good information out there on this. Even the so-called websites devoted to ghost towns fail to do the job completely. Their maps are outdated (mostly useless), and there's never any good information on where exactly you can find anything (more on this on Day 3). Mostly these sites are for people to brag about the secret they've encountered on the ghost town trail.

Here's a few pictures of La Grange.

Afterwords we headed back toward the 49 to get to Chinese Camp.

Yun and I didn't even bother to get out of the car this time. It was a mere two buildings, converted into Bait and Snack shops, with nothing to show for the history of this town. Another miss from the Ghost Town sites that recommended Chinese Camp. Here's a picture of the historic marker that indicates this site used to be interesting.

From Chinese Camp, we headed to Jamestown, the absolute worst part of the trip. What should have been a cool visit turned into stupidity personified. I won't bother you with the details, but instead of staying in Jamestown, we called Hotels.com and got a room in Sonora, a mile up the road. And in order to encourage people to avoid Jamestown, I also won't be posting any pictures of it.

For the record, Jamestown California sucks. And the America's Best Value Inn in Jamestown California sucks.

Anyone doing a search for Hotels in Jamestown California and finding this site should thank me for directing you to spend the night in Sonora instead. One more time so it shows up on search engines. Jamestown California sucks. The America's Best Value Inn at 18239 Main Street in Jamestown California sucks. [Link]

Day 1

2011-05-01T00:05:00.000-07:00

Day 1. Yun and I left by 930am and heading north on the 405 toward the Central Valley of California. Only she didn't know where we were headed. She assumed Yosemite, which would end up skirting, but this guess would prove to be a funny joke between us for a few days.

We stopped a few times on the side of the road for snacks and so on, but no real pictures were taken on the first day. There's not really much to see in California until you get about six hours from LA (in my opinion).

We also stopped in Bakersfield to buy a blanket, as we knew we'd be camping at some point, and Bakersfield is worse now than I ever remember. What a dump. Do yourself a favor and keep driving.

We stopped a the Bravo Farms Cheese Factory in Traver off Rte 99. [Link]

[Traver, CA]

It has a petting zoo, wild parrots, and a turkey the size of a minivan. And since my wife is terrified of birds, we left very quickly.

We stopped in Kingsberg as well, which has a Scandinavian historical downtown section, which was deadly quiet on a Sunday afternoon. So, we cruised it for a few minutes and got back on the road.

[Kingsburg, CA]

We blasted through Fresno, because the only town more inane than Bakersfield would be Fresno.

Sometime late in the day, we reached Madera, CA and the Madera Valley Inn. [Link]

Having slept only a few hours the night before and driving most of the day, we stopped and crashed, ordering a Me and Ed's pizza [Link], which was as bad as I remember from my childhood. How do you screw up bread?

For the price, the room was sufficient, however, there was a strange event in the lobby at around 9pm, that I would be remiss to not mention. The front desk woman had nothing to do (it would seem) and her boyfriend cam to visit her at work. You know how professional small town businesses are? Anyway, both were slightly plump and a little needy, as the two proceeded to engage in a little passive aggressive exchange about who was the more pathetic of the two. The dialog was mostly about "No. Go. I have work to do." and "What do you want?" You know, the kind of adult dialog that makes it into quality films. I overheard the conversation for about five minutes (while using the lobby computer) before I had to get out of there. It was just too much. If anyone from the hotel is reading this, wow should you be embarrassed.

To be continued…

Day 0

2011-04-30T12:54:00.000-07:00

Renting the car for the trip was an ordeal. We originally wanted to get a convertible through Enterprise or Hertz, but trying to get a rental car on a Sunday is nigh-verboten. So, thanks to Stacey on this one for the assist.

We ended up renting this.

It would not have been my first choice, but it ended up being fun to drive.

Full-economy on the Charger SXT 6 was ass, however. Had to baby it just to get it to 25 MPG, but most of the trip it was at 18.

ASIDE: Yun was under the impression that I was unable to get a rental and that we'd be stuck running around the first morning of the trip trying to find something and/or taking our own car (which would be boring). On Day 1, I surprised her by loading the entire car while she was showering.

Day T-20

2011-04-15T12:43:00.000-07:00

On May 1st, 2011, Yun and I went on a 10 day road-trip. But planning for the trip started about three weeks earlier. Yun, of course, had no idea where we'd be going and I told her nothing until about a week before hand when it was time to get snacks, pack clothes, and prep for the final legs of the trip.

Several forays onto the internet and to the book store lead me to plan a trip up California Hwy-49 through gold rush towns, over U.S. Hwy-50 to Tahoe for some camping, and then finally into Nevada where we could explore anything and everything we wanted.

For the record, researching Gold Rush towns that are no in Death Valley (both online and at the store) was pain-staking. The information is not readily available, the maps are awful, and many places that are listed just don't really exist. Many of the ghost towns have been swallowed up, and even the locals don't really give many landmarks once you arrive. Unless it's a tourist spot, it's kinda lame to there.

While this was a perfect vacation for us, I wouldn't recommend it for someone looking for a great exploration of old ghost towns.