Grass Valley and Colfax

Wednesday, June 7, 2017

Today we start our morning with a breakfast at Awful Annie’s Restaurant that my cousin in San Leandro, CA recommended.  Thanks, Richard.  What an unusual name.  Is the place really awful?  What a cute place and delicious food.  

My father’s family was Portuguese so I grew up on Portuguese Linguica (sausage with  pork, garlic and paprika among other things).  This is California after all where lots of Portuguese people live so it should not have been a surprise that a Linguica Scramble was on the menu.    You know what I had, don’t you?  Delicious Linguica Scramble along with fresh fruit.  

Our waitress said that a local meat market carries linguica so we will stop on our return trip back to town this afternoon to purchase some.  It’s all mine since Ron does not like it.  Yeah! 

After our breakfast we drive east and then north on another of the many two lane windy mountain roads

of the area until we reach Nevada City where we did not find the old part of town.  We are told it was there but somehow we blinked too fast and passed up the many streets, so we continue on to Grass Valley.  Guess there were too many trees in the way.  Another time.

Grass Valley was founded in 1850 when George Knight stubbed his toe on a piece of quartz laced with gold.  The city became the richest gold mining town in California aided by advanced mining techniques.  The Empire Mine alone produced 6 million ounces of gold during its time. 

Here we find a city of up and down hilly streets and lots of old buildings filled with shops and restaurants of many kinds. 

Though the streets are filled with parked and moving cars and trucks, shops are not terribly busy.

An old bank building

The Holbrooke Hotel

An old theater

Ice Cream Truck found in ice cream store window

We walk along the sidewalks and  poke our heads into a crowded narrow aisle antique shop with some interesting items.  I love to see what they have to offer.  Lots of the items are found at nearly every antique store, but other items are more one of a kind and may be unique to the area.  Too bad I find things I could put in a house, if I had one.  Oh well, some other time and place. 

Returning to the highway or windy road, I should say, we proceed back the way we came to stop at Rollins Lake, a small lake high in the mountains with a couple of campgrounds and boat docks.  It is a cool day, but people are out in their boats enjoying the overcast weather. 

As we near I-80, we enter the town of Colfax, another of those old towns in the mountains.  

It began life as Alder Grove and was a winter camping spot for trappers and miners in the mid 1800’s.   It is above the fog and below the snow line.  When the railroad came through the town the town name was changed to Colfax in honor of Schulyer Colfax the Speaker of the House of Representatives at that time.  Though smaller than Grass Valley, it nonetheless has some old buildings and some history to tell.  It started as a central transportation, communications and gathering place and remains so today.   It is known as the “Gateway” to the high Sierra Mountains.  The old train station was built in 1905 on this Transcontinental Railway line and today a modern Amtrak train stops here along its way to San Francisico. Maybe this was another place my Grandmother went through in 1902 when she crossed the country from Boston to Oakland on the Transcontinental Railway.

Returning to Auburn, we stop for that Linguica and await the arrival of Ron’s friend, Larry and his wife, Julie.  We have dinner in Old Town Auburn at Cafe Delicias (a cute Mexican restaurant with exposed brick walls).  Dinner is delicious but would not be complete without some sort of ice cream which we find at a local frozen yoghurt shop.  We say a final goodbye to our friends as we leave Auburn tomorrow for parts north and hope we will see Larry and Julie this winter when they visit grandchildren in the Phoenix area and we are in Casa Grande.