Some Follow Up

It was a beautiful day yesterday and even though we wanted to stay home and get some things done, we found a way to get out in the sunshine. Josie did some baking in the AM (brownies), and we decided to go to Safeway in town to get some things and drop off one of Josie's prescriptions at Walmart. On the way home, Josie suggested driving down Italian Bar Rd to where the folks would have gone with their motor home on Saturday. You recall the circus that showed up on Saturday and dropped off a utility trailer and proceeded to go down this long dirt road to camp in order to pan for gold.

Italian Bar Rd is the road our campground is on and it continues for about 5 miles before the pavement ends. It then turns into a dirt road that is another 5 miles long and goes through many switchbacks, down the side of a hill that drops a total of about 1000 feet in that 5 miles. There were potholes all the way down and many tight turns with jagged rocks sticking out and, in some spots, barely enough room to drive while you stare straight down over the cliff. We finally reached the bottom and were totally amazed. There is a campground there, with no hookups of course, and it sits right on this raging river that was probably 30' wide. There were old buildings that were actually standing here during the gold rush days in 1850. We connected with a guy named Gary who is the caretaker and lives there year round. He told us, and a sign verifies it, that there were 3,000 workers here in 1850 and they pulled out a total of $10 million in gold from this river and the surrounding area. Gold was selling for $21 per ounce back then so you can imagine how much gold that represents. Gary indicated that there is still gold taken from here almost every day.

The property is owned by the Lost Dutchman Mining Association (LDMA), and there were small trailers there that were in storage waiting for members to come for the summer season. There were also some tenters there and, you guessed it, the 40' motor home that was in our campground - amazing! Of course, we were totally unprepared for this as we left the camera at home thinking we were only going to the store.

We will definitely return with our camera on another nice day. That is, if I can convince Josie that she will not end up going over the cliff on the way. It was a white knuckle trip for sure. We can't imagine how that motor home made it down and it will be a small miracle if it makes it back up. It will make for some amazing photos.

The day has started out with some light showers today so I guess our nice weather is once again on hold. Until tomorrow...