My wonderful husband had to travel to visit clients, so I invited my friend Michelle down to spend the weekend and go on an adventure with us….
Yay! She’s here!
We drove along a magnificent country road to a town called Mokelumne Hill, about an hour(?) south of us. This is an old gold rush town, with original buildings along the main street. My friend, Marisa, owns a fabulous fine art gallery there. We went to check it out, but it was closed. I texted her to let her know that we had stopped by and she contacted someone who was able to let us in and look at the gallery on our own! We felt so spoiled! Petroglyph Gallery.
This building is actually an adorable hotel. A romantic getaway spot. We took a look in some of the rooms. Each room was decorated with individual antique furnishings. Hotel Leger
We drove on to Moaning Cavern, in Angels Camp, Calaveras County, about two hours south of us. This cavern is so large, you can fit the Statue of Liberty in it. It was quite impressive.
Hanging out in Angels Camp, another lovely gold rush town….
OK, this might be a little weird to you, but we liked visiting the local historic cemetery. This section was dedicated to the Serbian population that settled here…
After checking out the cavern, the boys and I went on their zipline! Michelle wanted nothing to do with it, so she took pictures at the base. It was fun, but went by too fast!
The next day, we visited another terrific little town, Murphys. Here we are enjoying yummy grilled cheese sandwiches at Roquefort
This is a cool God story. While we were driving down, Michelle was telling me how she had fallen in love with a cockalier puppy at a pet store (cross between a cocker spaniel and a king charles cavalier spaniel). When she went back to get him she was dismayed to discover he was already taken. We decided we would look online to see if there were any cockalier puppies in our area for sale. After we checked into our hotel in Angels Camp, Michelle and I both went online to search for Sacramento/Bay area breeders. No such luck. The closest we found was Missouri.
The next day, while walking along the main street of the quaint little town of Murphys, we noticed posted flyers on telephone poles of, guess what?!, king charles cavalier puppies! It did not take long to recognize that this was (literally!) a sign and it must be followed. Michelle called the number and we visited them at the end of the day. She took one look at this little fellow and it was love at first sight. He was too young for her to take him, so she put down a deposit and scheduled to return the next month. Guess what she named him? Starts with an ‘M’…
Next day, we went to the Calaveras County Big Trees State Park. This is home to the California Giant Sequoias, —the world’s largest trees— native only to the western slope of California’s Sierra Nevada mountains. (As opposed to the California Redwoods, the world’s tallest trees….). We hiked through part of the grove, then hiked above it to a vista, took a break for lunch, then back down into the grove to continue the hike. It was a good, solid day, and made for a well earned hot tub back at home that evening.
It was a short, but full packed adventure with my lifelong friend and my two awesome boys.
