“In the days of old, in the days of gold, in the days of ‘49”
California State Highway 49, the “Mother Lode Highway,” can truly take you back to the days of ’49. The road connects gold rush mining camps, ghost towns and historic sites from Oakhurst in the south, to Sierra City in the north. It’s three hundred miles of beautiful country along the foothills of the Sierra Mountains. Twisting mountain roads, sheer granite walls, precipitous drops to swiftly moving rivers. Old buildings, gold mines, forgotten cemeteries. Let’s go see what we can find.
On August 3rd of 1877, a stage was making its way over the low hills between Point Arenas and Duncan’s Mills on the Russian River when a lone figure suddenly appeared in the middle of the road. Wearing a long linen duster and masked with a flour scan, the bandit pointed a double-barreled shotgun at the driver and said, in a deep and resonant voice, “Throw down the box!”
Read MoreJoshua Tree National Park, the California Gold Country, forgotten places in the Mojave Desert. These are a few of my favorite things.
