Mother Lode Fairgrounds RV Park, Sonora, CA
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Friday, April 13, 2007
We drove the RV over the same route as yesterday in the truck - Rt. 49. Ray took the twists and acute turns slow and pulled over at turn-outs to let the faster traffic pass us. Route 49 is about 44 miles and it took us almost two hours. We arrived safe and sound at the Mother Lode Fairgrounds RV Park in Sonora. There are about twenty sites and only three RV’s counting ours. Beautiful trees surround the park and are their leaves are starting to come out as Spring has sprung. On Saturday a front that started in the Pacific finally reached this area and caused overcast skies and rain off and on all day long.
Ray's Reflections: Sonora is just east of Stockton and its big claim to fame is this area is where gold was discovered in California along Rt. 49 *the Mother Load Road. This was real was a big surprise to us, with its horse ranches, rolling hills, beautiful lakes, and history. A little town just south, Jamestown, houses one of the largest displays of steam locomotives. These trains and their equipment have played an important role in many of our favorite movies and TV series. What an amazing collection of vintage trains..jpg)
I had the opportunity to ride this area several days. Every direction from Sonora was very enjoyable including the day I was looking for a winery and ended up on a single-lane road that dead-ended into a detention camp for juveniles. Never found the winery. On the day I was looking for Mark Twains’ cabin, I found an indoor casino, no one seemed to know where the cabin was located and I thought the locals knew everything.
We drove to nearby Jamestown to see the historical downtown district. At the height of the Gold Rush in 1852, Jamestown had a population of 6,000. Tuolumne County’s total population was about 17,000. Over 150 years of history have been preserved in the town’s architecture and many of the original buildings have been restored and are on the National Register of Historic Places.
This is a two-story Victorian-Eastlake style commercial brick building, and among other types of businesses it became the county’s telephone switching center from 1906-1923. A number of two-story building with porches and verandas line the west side of Main Street. In the 1950s, the Highway 108/49 bypass took Jamestown out of the mainstream of travel and helped to preserve the historic downtown.
In the winter of 1897, the Sierra Railway steam passenger train came to Woods Crossing west of Jamestown.
The park gives walking tours featuring the roundhouse, one of the last of its kind in North America. but we arrived too late, so we took a self-guided tour of this famous Railtown 1897 State Historic Park, also called the “Movie Railroad”. Most of the structures that remain were built between 1897 and 1922. The Jamestown shops remained intact servicing the growing needs of the motion picture and television industries. When the State of California purchased the 26-acre site and included it in the State Park System, it preserved one of North Americas last operating steam era railroad facilities.
Locomotive No. 3 The most famous locomotive in the world. Built in 1891 for the Prescott & Arizona Central and purchased by the Sierra in 1897. It has appeared in nearly 50 motion pictures and more than 20 television series, and is still used for movie work and special occasions. Most recent credits include Back to the Future III, Unforgiven, and Bad Girls.
Track Car No. 8 is a 1920 Model T that was converted to rail operation by Jamestown shop crews and is still operational.
Wednesday, April 18 - Drove to Columbia and walked the streets of Columbia State Historic Park. We found the walk through the old buildings fascinating and enjoyed hearing the stories passed down and shared by the shop keepers. You can pan for gold take a trail ride or climb aboard a stagecoach. When we needed to warm up, we got hot chocolate at the 1850s saloon.The temperature was 42 degrees warming up to 59.
Picture of original Supply Store. The town is at 2,100 feet elevation. Columbia is known as the “Gem of the Southern Mines” – By1853 Columbia was one of the largest cities in CA, with estimated population of 25,000. As much as $150 million in gold was mined here. Gold from Columbia helped to finance the US government and the Union Army during the Civil War. Today Columbia State Park contains the largest single collection of existing gold rush-era brick structures. The buildings of wood were destroyed by fire in either 1854, 1857 that left only brick buildings with thick walls and iron shutters intact.
Mining started out primitive and improved once water was delivered to Columbia by a 60-mile complex system of wooden flumes, pipesand ditches to convey the water from the Stanislaus River to Columbia. Native people for thousands of years resided in the valleys, foothills and mountains of Central California. The Miwok lived in the Columbia area. Their way of life was drastically altered when newcomers came to the area introducing diseases and increased warfare in the region. In spite of epidemics, abuses and deaths suffered in the gold rush era, the descendants of native Miwok and Yokuts Indian people survive today.
We continued on our drive to Murphys and ate lunch at the Sun China restaurant. Good food and service. We saw a lot of wineries along our drive, but didn’t stop at any of them.
Friday, April 20 - We took a ride over to Tuolumne to visit the Cover’s Apple Ranch. They have fun for the whole family with a bakery, gift shop, petting farm, and Steam Train Ride. They also have soup, sandwiches and a daily special available at the deli. We bought an apple pie to “die” for, bit pricy at $13, but worth every morsel. The ride over the hills and through the valleys was awesome. We went to dinner at Outlaws Bar-B-Q Restaurant in downtown Sonora. Good steaks and lots of history. Bullet holes in the walls as decoration?
We drove the RV over the same route as yesterday in the truck - Rt. 49. Ray took the twists and acute turns slow and pulled over at turn-outs to let the faster traffic pass us. Route 49 is about 44 miles and it took us almost two hours. We arrived safe and sound at the Mother Lode Fairgrounds RV Park in Sonora. There are about twenty sites and only three RV’s counting ours. Beautiful trees surround the park and are their leaves are starting to come out as Spring has sprung. On Saturday a front that started in the Pacific finally reached this area and caused overcast skies and rain off and on all day long.
Ray's Reflections: Sonora is just east of Stockton and its big claim to fame is this area is where gold was discovered in California along Rt. 49 *the Mother Load Road. This was real was a big surprise to us, with its horse ranches, rolling hills, beautiful lakes, and history. A little town just south, Jamestown, houses one of the largest displays of steam locomotives. These trains and their equipment have played an important role in many of our favorite movies and TV series. What an amazing collection of vintage trains.
.jpg)
I had the opportunity to ride this area several days. Every direction from Sonora was very enjoyable including the day I was looking for a winery and ended up on a single-lane road that dead-ended into a detention camp for juveniles. Never found the winery. On the day I was looking for Mark Twains’ cabin, I found an indoor casino, no one seemed to know where the cabin was located and I thought the locals knew everything.
We drove to nearby Jamestown to see the historical downtown district. At the height of the Gold Rush in 1852, Jamestown had a population of 6,000. Tuolumne County’s total population was about 17,000. Over 150 years of history have been preserved in the town’s architecture and many of the original buildings have been restored and are on the National Register of Historic Places.
This is a two-story Victorian-Eastlake style commercial brick building, and among other types of businesses it became the county’s telephone switching center from 1906-1923. A number of two-story building with porches and verandas line the west side of Main Street. In the 1950s, the Highway 108/49 bypass took Jamestown out of the mainstream of travel and helped to preserve the historic downtown.
In the winter of 1897, the Sierra Railway steam passenger train came to Woods Crossing west of Jamestown.
The park gives walking tours featuring the roundhouse, one of the last of its kind in North America. but we arrived too late, so we took a self-guided tour of this famous Railtown 1897 State Historic Park, also called the “Movie Railroad”. Most of the structures that remain were built between 1897 and 1922. The Jamestown shops remained intact servicing the growing needs of the motion picture and television industries. When the State of California purchased the 26-acre site and included it in the State Park System, it preserved one of North Americas last operating steam era railroad facilities.
Locomotive No. 3 The most famous locomotive in the world. Built in 1891 for the Prescott & Arizona Central and purchased by the Sierra in 1897. It has appeared in nearly 50 motion pictures and more than 20 television series, and is still used for movie work and special occasions. Most recent credits include Back to the Future III, Unforgiven, and Bad Girls.
Track Car No. 8 is a 1920 Model T that was converted to rail operation by Jamestown shop crews and is still operational.
Wednesday, April 18 - Drove to Columbia and walked the streets of Columbia State Historic Park. We found the walk through the old buildings fascinating and enjoyed hearing the stories passed down and shared by the shop keepers. You can pan for gold take a trail ride or climb aboard a stagecoach. When we needed to warm up, we got hot chocolate at the 1850s saloon.The temperature was 42 degrees warming up to 59.
Picture of original Supply Store. The town is at 2,100 feet elevation. Columbia is known as the “Gem of the Southern Mines” – By1853 Columbia was one of the largest cities in CA, with estimated population of 25,000. As much as $150 million in gold was mined here. Gold from Columbia helped to finance the US government and the Union Army during the Civil War. Today Columbia State Park contains the largest single collection of existing gold rush-era brick structures. The buildings of wood were destroyed by fire in either 1854, 1857 that left only brick buildings with thick walls and iron shutters intact.Mining started out primitive and improved once water was delivered to Columbia by a 60-mile complex system of wooden flumes, pipesand ditches to convey the water from the Stanislaus River to Columbia. Native people for thousands of years resided in the valleys, foothills and mountains of Central California. The Miwok lived in the Columbia area. Their way of life was drastically altered when newcomers came to the area introducing diseases and increased warfare in the region. In spite of epidemics, abuses and deaths suffered in the gold rush era, the descendants of native Miwok and Yokuts Indian people survive today.
We continued on our drive to Murphys and ate lunch at the Sun China restaurant. Good food and service. We saw a lot of wineries along our drive, but didn’t stop at any of them.
Friday, April 20 - We took a ride over to Tuolumne to visit the Cover’s Apple Ranch. They have fun for the whole family with a bakery, gift shop, petting farm, and Steam Train Ride. They also have soup, sandwiches and a daily special available at the deli. We bought an apple pie to “die” for, bit pricy at $13, but worth every morsel. The ride over the hills and through the valleys was awesome. We went to dinner at Outlaws Bar-B-Q Restaurant in downtown Sonora. Good steaks and lots of history. Bullet holes in the walls as decoration?
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