AUBURN, HEART OF GOLD COUNTRY

Like many bay area people, my friends Kay and Tom bought a retirement home not too far outside of the old gold mining town of Auburn, California. Every time I visit, which is often, I like the place more and more.  Maybe it's because it reminds me of Reno, my hometown, which is just on the other side of the mountains.  Reno, like Auburn, cuddles up to the Sierra's and is about an hour's drive to Lake Tahoe.  Each has four seasons with a bit of snow in the winter.  Reno has a mining town close by, Virginia City, however, unlike Auburn, its Mother Lode was silver.  So much silver in fact, that it's said that the money from those mines built San Francisco.  Ah, but that's another blog...

Auburn, being on the western side of the mountains, is close to Sacramento, and San Francisco is just a day trip away.  It's country, with cattle on green rolling hills, quaint and laid back, yet close enough to urban areas for all the sophistication one can handle.  Like its close neighbors, Grass Valley and Nevada City, it has turned its 19th century dry goods stores into gourmet restaurants, it's saloons with the ghosts of ribald miners and female "gold diggers" into decorator shops, and its livery stables into jewelery stores.  On my last trip there in May, my goal was to attempt to capture photographically just what a great place it is.  And, I learned some history along the way.

Gold Fever

It all started on a cold day in January, 1848, in the settlement of Coloma, about 10 miles south east of Auburn.  Jim Marshall, while building a lumber mill on the south fork of the American River, found gold.  Quickly, word spread of  more discoveries of gold along the Mother Lode in the western Sierra Nevada foothills, leading to a frenzied gold fever.  People from all over flocked to California the following year, giving them the name of "49'ers".

In the spring of 1848, a trio of French miners was on their way to Coloma when they camped in what would be later known as the Auburn Ravine.  Of the three, it was Claude Chana who was the lucky one to first find gold there.  The ore was rich and soon a camp developed, calling itself North Fork Dry Diggings, which was not a name for the tourist brochures, so by August of 1949 the camp officially became known as Auburn.  Auburn quickly blossomed into a town of 1,500, and in 1851 was chosen as the seat of Placer County. 

Auburn Today

Auburn still retains its Wild West mining town aura, especially in restored Old Town.  It is a living museum, still using its original gold rush era post office, stores, livery stables and courthouse.  The oldest fire station in the area sits right in the middle of town, once ready to save the old wood framed buildings.  Beautiful old Victorians grace the undulating hills, and once a year the residents of Auburn and her sister mining towns turn back time to the 19th century during their Christmas festivals and the effects are magical.

Original store fronts except the sidewalks would have been wooden planks.

The old Empire Livery Stable, built in 1864.  Now instead of boarding your horse
you can buy him a necklace.

The Placer County Courthouse sits majestically on a hill above Auburn.

The old fire station, erected in 1891 by the Volunteer Firemen of Auburn Ladder Co. #2.

New Town, so called because of its early 20th century style buildings, is just up the street.  My favorite shop is the old drugstore with its still working soda fountain and original gray veined marble counter tops.  Sipping a root beer float while sitting on the original round stools just makes whatever you're eating taste extra yummy.

Statue commemorating the contribution of the Chinese laborer
 to the building of the Transcontinental Railroad through Auburn in 1865.

Placer County Courthouse

Built on a high knoll, the Placer County Courthouse regally commands the attention of everyone for miles around.  When completed in 1898, the residents of Auburn must have been so proud to see their elegant courthouse dominate the landscape with its refined yellow bricks glowing gold in the sunlight sitting atop ruggedly chiseled grey granite.  It's a show piece even now after 114 years.  Being the county seat, it also served as a jail, housing both male and female offenders.  It quickly became obvious that it wasn't working to have both sexes in the same area, so the females were unceremoniously banned to an impromptu cell under the front stairs.  It was undignified, to say the least, in its lack of privacy and sanitation, however women were incarcerated in this small cubbyhole for 41 more years!  The courthouse still serves as the county seat, and thankfully a museum has taken place of the jail, which chronicles the life and times the the very unique town of Auburn.

Entry to the women's jail.

Women's cell under the courthouse steps for 41 years.  Notice the latest in
enamel-ware bathroom fixtures.

Next time:  The Bernhard House, first a Pony Express way station, is a great example of life in the gold rush days.

BEEN THERE! SEEN THAT!

I love it when I see something on a travel program or TV about a place I've visited.  I get really excited and wag my finger at the screen and say, "I've been there!  I've seen that!"  Well, I did my finger wagging today when I saw on the news that Prince William was made a Knight of the Order of the Thistle at St. Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Kay, Tom and I spent two of the best weeks of my life in Scotland in 2009.  We started our tour by spending three days in Edinburgh where, among many wonderful sights, we visited St. Giles Cathedral.  Inside the church is the tiny Thistle Chapel where Prince William was knighted yesterday by his grandmother, the Queen of England, who is also the Sovereign of the Order.  Her Coat of Arms is carved into the dais in front of her seat.  The Chapel's woodwork is intricately hand carved, the tall ceilings stately and ornate, and even though it was built in the early 1900's, looks (and smells) quite medieval.

St. Giles Cathedral

Thistle Chapel

The Queen's seat

Her Coat of Arms

The ornate ceiling in the Thistle Chapel

The Palace of Holyrood is where the Royals stay when they are in town, which is usually the first week of July.  It was at the end of the day when Kay and I started our tour and we almost had the place to ourselves.  Even Tom elected to pass on the Palace and tour a local pub instead.  One of the first rooms we saw was the dining room where a large portrait of King George IV in full Royal Stewart regalia hung on the wall.  It was at that moment I claimed Holyrood Palace as my own, being a Stewart myself, thanks to my maternal grandfather.  (Mary Queen of Scots, having been raised in France, changed the spelling of the name Stewart to the french spelling of Stuart.  However it's spelled, it is the same clan.)

The Palace is steeped in English and Scottish history.  The most notable is that Queen Mary resided here after her second marriage to Lord Darnley.  It was in her tiny supper room that Darnley dragged Queen Mary's personal secretary, Rizzio (while clinging to her skirts) into her outer chambers and had him stabbed 56 times.  Darnley, brutish to the core, was jealous of Rizzio's influence on the Queen.  She was quite pregnant at the time with the future King of England, King James IV.  We saw that room that had, until recently, the blood stains preserved on the floor.  Great Scottish drama if there ever was one!

Palace of Holyrood

The Palace is attached to the ruins of Holyrood Abby, originally built in 1128.

We also had the gardens completely to ourselves, sniffing the Queen's flowers.

 

A RIOT OF RANUNCULUS

Ranunculus Fields in Carlsbad, California

Perched on the sandy cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean is the charming village of Carlsbad located in northern San Diego County.  The views west toward the ocean always fill me with peace, and in the springtime so do the views facing east.  Because in spring, the ranunculus are in bloom.  Acres of them.  Huge rainbow stripes of flowers in butter yellows, rich reds, vibrant oranges, snow whites, deep luscious purples, and sweet pinks undulating over the landscape in the gentle ocean breezes.

On a particularly spectacular day last week, my friend Susan and I drove up to Carlsbad to have lunch and spend the afternoon wandering around the Fields.  I hadn't been there for a few years and the surprises began when we paid $10 at the gate.  "Was it that much last time?" we asked each other.  Then when I looked around I could see how much the Flower Fields' attractions have expanded since the last time I visited. They've added a sweet pea maze for the children, a flower garden and greenhouses showcasing cymbidium and poinsettia varieties (from Paul Ecke's farms), plus tram rides around the property.

                                   You can see the ocean over the village of Carlsbad.

I also learned some history of the Fields I hadn't known before.  On some well illustrated signs I read that the property was purchased in 1929 by Edwin Frazee.  The land had been slated for a housing community but the plan fell through when the stock market crashed.  It proved to be a perfect location for  Edwin Frazee and his ranuculus farm however, and he spent the next few decades developing multiple strains of this lovely flower starting from a single petal to multi petal varieties.  Ten years ago, the fields opened to the public for a few months in spring, and became a popular tourist attraction, which we now know as the Flower Fields of Carlsbad.

As we strolled around the ranuculus we noticed that there would frequently be an errant colored flower sprinkled among the other colors.  I understood that ranunculus were bulb plants so I stopped the first attendant we saw and asked if the flowers were from seed or bulbs.  He said they were both!  He explained that they are first planted with seed then the flowers are allowed to go through a complete growing cycle.  When they've begun to die back, the bulbs they form (actually tuberous roots) are harvested and sold throughout the United States, Canada and Europe.

It turned out to be a perfect day and a perfect photo op. You can't beat Mother Nature for artistry! (And,it was $10 well spent.)

This is a great example of the different varieties of ranuculus.

Cymbidium

One of several Paul Ecke's variety of Poinsettia.

Double click on any picture for a full screen slide show!

THE VINE THAT ATE A HOUSE

In the green rolling hills of Sierra Madre, California, grows a plant of gargantuan proportions.  It is a huge sprawling wistaria vine, which covers over an acre of land.  It is so big, in fact, that the Guinness Book of World Records has crowned it the world's largest blooming plant.  It even has it's own coming out party held every year on the same day come rain or shine.  Unfortunately, it was rain this year--torrents of it.

Sierra Madre is a beautiful little town tucked in the hills above Pasadena, and on March 25th of each year it celebrates its main claim to fame by hosting the annual Wistaria Vine Festival.  We decided to go even though rain by the buckets had been predicted to put a damper on the festivities.  Fortunately for us, it was just sprinkling as we rode the shuttle from downtown to the quiet residential street where the Vine resides.  Once there, we walked up a short hill, turned into a modest gate and there it was:  a massive collection of gnarled vines, some the size of small tree trunks stretching from support pole to support pole that seemed to have no end.  Did Alice Brugman have any clue that the Chinese Wistaria she bought for $.75 in 1894 to beautify her new home would ever turn into this?  She must have been fascinated as her jack in the bean stalk plant flourished under her care, eventually growing to cover nearly two acres of ground at its peak.  Although her fascination must have turned into horror when in 1930 her vine on steroids essentially ate her house, crushing it with all of its 250 tons!

Sadly the Vine got a little puny after that, perhaps from guilt, and experts were brought in to prune it back to the size it is now and pump it up with vitamins.  Sadly for us, because Southern California didn't really have a winter, the Vine bloomed its head off two months early, which left us to admire the few spent blossoms that still hung around.  Mother Nature, it seems, is no respecter of festival organizers.

The Vine spans two adjoining properties and creates a pleasant canopy of blossoms.

The wistaria vine was named in honor of Caspar Wistar (1761-1818), an American
 physician.  Hence the correct spelling is wistaria and not wisteria.

This is the original vine that ate the house!

A look back across the yard towards the hills.  It reminded me of

an Italian Tuscan landscape.

The day brought back memories of my two weeks in Scotland.  I never got out of my rain coat and I became adept at taking pictures with one hand and holding my umbrella with the other.

THE PINNEY HOUSE

By the time we boarded the shuttle to go to the next Sierra Madre landmark, the drizzly rain had turned into a fairly serious downpour.  However, as we pulled up in front of a beautifully restored  Queen Anne Victorian, we were glad we braved the weather.  The stately Vic was built in 1887 by Dr. Elbert Pinney as a 24 room hotel to serve guests traveling from the east to buy land and enjoy the mild winters.  Originally named the Hotel Sierra Madre, rooms were a steal at $8 to $12 a week including meals, but the potties were outside with a crescent on the door.

Over the years the "house" has had many transformations from hotel to boarding house, apartments, a sanatorium (where Jimmy Durante once came to dry out) to the current private residence of Judy and Greg Asbury.  They bought the old Girl in 2003 and have lovingly restored her to her former glory.  They've opened up cramped spaces that had been walled off when it was an apartment building and renovated it to contain 12 bedrooms and, thankfully, 11 luxurious baths each with its own claw foot tub.

The Asbury's plan to list their Treasure of the Sierra Madre home for sale soon.

The powder room off the main entry.

One of the eleven bathrooms.

There is a spacious screened in porch to the right with a belt driven fan, comfortable
chairs and a lovely view of the gardens..This is my favorite room in the house.  I'm sorry

I didn't get a good picture of it.

Door to the kitchen off the dining room.  The kitchen has been fully moderniied.

The master bedroom.

You can see I was taken with the baths.  Great attention to detail and the period.

We took the shuttle back downtown and had lunch.  Afterwards, ready to enjoy the rest of the festival,  we discovered that all of the vendors had packed up their tents and had gone home.  I felt badly for them.  The one day of the year the skys had to open up and pour down like a biblical deluge, it had to be on Festival day.  I spoke to the owner of the Pinney House and he said, "If you think this is bad you should have seen it last year!"  Rained out two years in a row.  Good grief.