Roadworks and heat!

I slept quite well until the noise of the busy road outside disturbed me, even through earplugs. We later realised we had left a window open – the room would have been quieter and warmer had we noticed that before bedtime!

The onsite cafe, Frank’s, didn’t open until 8.00 and with no WiFi in the room we were more than ready for breakfast as soon as it did! But when we went over it was to discover that it only had outside seating and with the temperature hovering only a few degrees above freezing that wasn’t very appealing! So we decided to cross over to the hotel restaurant opposite, despite concerns slow service would make us later leaving than planned. It did, a little, but that was to prove irrelevant as things turned out ...

Meanwhile the breakfast was excellent, with some of the best blueberry pancakes I can remember eating! I planned to only eat two of the three (there was no ‘short stack' option) but somehow managed all three! And to our surprise the filter coffee was quite pleasant, if not exactly strong.

After breakfast we set off in an easterly direction and soon turned south on the road to Chico, some 50 miles to the south. We'd been told on checking in yesterday that the fire that had hit Child's Meadow had started there, and now we saw for ourselves the devastation it had caused, with the entire valley to our right full of blackened trees.

About halfway along this road we got a shock. A warning sign declared the road closed ahead with a possible two hour wait. We'd already driven over 20 miles of challenging winding road; the last thing Chris would have wanted was to have to retrace our route. But then we spotted the second part of the changing electric sign. The road was opened at intervals: 10.00, 12.00 and 14.00. It was now 9.40 and we assumed we couldn’t be too far from the closure so should make it before 10.00. We did indeed, just a few minutes down the road, so although we had to sit waiting in a queue that consisted mainly of logging trucks for about 15 minutes, it could have been much worse. And our leisurely breakfast became irrelevant as we couldn’t have passed before 10.00 however early we'd got here.

We were here long enough that I was able to get out of the car to take some photos.

Once the traffic got moving we could see the reason for the closure. Workmen were clearing burned trees from the side of the road on a tight bend where access was difficult. Presumably they needed the whole width of the road to manoeuvre.

Chico

Once through this hold-up we continued to Chico with no further incidents. We decided to stop there for coffee and a break, and managed to get street parking right by a lovely bakery and coffee shop, the Tin Roof. We were still too full from breakfast to be tempted by their baked goods, but the coffee was very good and we were able to enjoy it at a shady table outside. The temperature had risen rapidly as we drove here, from 52F when we set out to 87F now, according to our car's temperature gauge.

After our coffees we had a stroll around the block, taken by some Art Deco style buildings (especially the theatre) and some colourful street art. Then, refreshed by our break, we continued the drive to Grass Valley. We had left the coniferous forests behind us and were now in farming country, the road lined with fields and orchards.

Empire Mine

Arriving in Grass Valley we went to visit the Empire Mine State Park, site of a former deep gold mine. This was one of the oldest, deepest, and richest gold mines in California. In operation for more than 100 years, the mine extracted 5.8 million ounces of gold before it closed in 1956.

It was really hot by now, about 95F (it had briefly hit 100F as we drove) so we were glad that the Visitor Centre was pleasantly air conditioned. It contains lots of photos and documents relating to the mine but the ‘star attraction’ is a scale model of the mine. This was created to help keep track of the mine's 367 underground workings over five square miles. It gives some sense of the scale of the mine but I found it hard to fully understand and impossible to photograph!

Because of the heat we didn’t explore the whole park which includes not only many of the mine’s buildings and the owner’s home and restored gardens, but also miles of trails in the backcountry. But we did visit the blacksmith shop (where it was even hotter!), went down into the shaft a short distance and walked around some of the other buildings.

The owner's house was closed (I think it only opens for guided tours) but we could walk around outside and enjoy the shady gardens.

Grass Valley

We then drove into the centre of Grass Valley where I’d reserved a room for the night at the historic Holbrooke Hotel on Main Street. Although the hotel is old, our room was light and airy, and pleasantly cool, so we stayed in for a while, taking advantage of the WiFi to catch up on emails etc. after our night without a decent connection!

The Holbrooke Hotel

In the early evening when the temperature had cooled a little we went out for a walk to see something of the town. We found some good street art and interesting old buildings, including a classic 1930s cinema.

We then had dinner at an Italian restaurant on pedestrianised Mill Street, chosen in part because we could sit outside – a treat in this warm weather. The service from our Filipino waitress was friendly and the food good on the whole, although I had to ask to have my swordfish reheated as the dish wasn’t at all warm.

After our meal we went back to the hotel where we took advantage of the discount voucher included with our stay to have a drink in the bar. This was full of historical character, dating back to 1852. We sat up at the bar, enjoying watching the young woman serving at work and chatting to her a little. A pleasant way to end the day before retiring to our lovely room.