Road Trip to Nevada City - Rain-Soaked Travel Day

On the road again, and this time we're in Nevada City, California after driving from the Monterey Peninsula to Auburn along a wet and crowded Interstate 5 for much of the way.  No problems that really slowed us down, but still the going was sloggier than we'd have liked.  It takes us about four hours to make the drive on a clear day; today was an hour longer due to Friday commute traffic and the rain.

Auburn is on Highway 49, a route that bears exploring.  It's named after the famous year - 1849 - when gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill near Auburn, starting a feverish rush to the area from all parts of the world.  Most towns along Hwy 49 are charming and interesting, but in the year or two it took to create many of them, times were wild and wooly.  Men and some women were elbowing their way to stake claims or make their fortunes as entrepreneurs who supplied or entertained the miners.

Nevada City sprang up in a matter of a year and became home to over 50,000 people almost overnight.  It became home to some of the richest gold mines ever known to the gold rush and is now the county seat of Nevada County.  Hwy 49 intersects Hwy 20 right at the edge of town, and two creeks flow down through the hills and along the streets of town.  It has the typical rugged mining town ambience with steeply pitched rooftops, brick buildings, hitching posts, remnant ore mining artifacts and a few cemeteries that are the resting place for original citizens of the town.

More to see, more to tell, but we've just arrived and the rain is gurgling in the gutters.