Leaving Lake Tahoe, we made our way through some of the old mining towns in the north. Truckee was the first stop, not a truck stop as the name implies, but a pretty timber and railway town. It's supposed to be one of the oldest and coldest towns in America, although it was lovely and sunny when we visited.
This is apparently Paul Macarthy's favourite cafe here about. He's a skier I believe, so that's probably why he comes here.
A popular spot for mountain biking too.
Lots of nice cafes and cutsie shops these days.
Nevada City (California). Once known as the 'Queen of the Northern Mines' it is now has a beautifully renovated historic district.
Maple lined streets, Victorian buildings and gas lamps.
Nevada City’s sculptures are old mining equipment. This is a gold stamping mill.
This is one of the high pressure nozzles used to wash gold bearing gravel off hill sides. Hydraulic mining was soon banned as it resulted in severe pollution of rivers and streams.
This is the granite and red brick English manor style home of the wealthy Bourne Family owners of the Empire Mine near Grass Valley. It is now part of the 317 hectare Empire Mine State Historic Park.
It is surrounded by extensive English style gardens with 1,000 rose bushes, amongst many other plants.
It has an extravagant redwood interior.
We did a tour with docents dressed up in costumes for 1905. This is the cook/housekeeper. She took care of the house when the owners were at their main home in San Fransisco.
Looking down the main mine shaft. There are over 500km of shafts in the mine that yielded 16.5 million grams of gold before closing in 1956.
Lots of machinery. This is a steam driven winch.
The mine head, where carts loaded with men were winched down and then up the mine and carts loaded with ore were winched up for processing.
That night we stayed in former mining town of Auburn. This is the Placer County Courthouse Museum.
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