Good Weather for Frogs

We were expecting the rain to start up early yesterday morning, and so we planned to stay in and relax for the day. Then, the rain held off, and so we decided...no time like the present...and off we went.

We're in this area because of an article I stuffed into my California folder from National Geographic entitled, "Three California Gold-Rush Towns Worth Visiting." The towns of Jamestown, Sonora, and Columbia were the three towns referred to in the title. After driving past the Mark Twain Cabin and learning its significance, we wondered why Angels Camp wasn't also included. And honestly, now I'm starting to wonder if the person writing the article even visited, because Angels Camp was no slouch. It was our first stop on yesterday's route, and what a kick!

Angels Camp has capitalized on its relationship to Mark Twain and his story about "The Celebrated Frog of Calaveras County," since this is the place where inspiration struck. Driving into town, we first laid eyes on this mural painted on the side of a building:

We drove to the far end of the main street through town, and parked across from the visitor center.

Looking down the street, it looks like this:

We were still expecting rain, and so we were happy about these covered sidewalks.

Across the street was the post office. I love seeing old post office buildings.

The sidewalk was lined with these plaques. They are about the size of a manhole cover and they celebrate winners of the annual Jumping Frog Jubilee. This has been going on since 1893, and it has been an annual event since 1928.

They lined both sides of the street for the entirety of the distance.

It was like walking Hollywood's Walk of Fame, only for frogs.

We were simply window shopping, but the posters in the shop windows told the story of the town. Of course, it was a gold rush town, but it owes its continuing fame to Mark Twain.

Apparently there's no market for gold these days.

A lot of the posters talked of Mark Twin/Samuel Clemens and his life. As a humorist, I'd always thought of the man as something of a comedian. As it turns out, he, like most others, had his share of trials.

Here's a little more information about the cabin I spoke of in yesterday's post.

And here's the associated picture of the original cabin. "Rustic," might be giving it a little too much credit.

As we walked past this building, I took a picture of the sign commemorating its history. I'd meant to get a better picture of the building.

You can see it on the far left of the image below.

And this town celebrated frogs...let me tell you. Nothing but frogs everywhere you looked. In the image below, there's also a bust of Mark Twain.

Here's how the frog contest works.

This is the accompanying image.

We spoke with a shopkeeper about the frog contest. She told us the record holder was a frog named Rosie the Ribeter, with a jumping record of 21 feet, 5 3/4 inches, set in 1986. The record still stands. Anyone who breaks the record can win a prize of $5,000. I was curious if I could find information about the frog, Rosie, and found this article about "The Science of Winning Leaps" at this event. It's worth reading if you're thinking of entering a frog.

Continuing on with our window shopping, we saw this:

And this:

If you use your imagination, you might be able to see a roll of toilet paper in that camper above. Just goes to show where my mind is wandering these days.

Here's just a little bit more about Mark Twain.

And about the Angels Hotel.

We walked down and up the main street, ending at the visitor center. Doesn't this porch look inviting on a warm day?

This was the screen door leading inside.

Mike picked up a hat and a t-shirt. I got the little refrigerator magnet you see below. It's very cute. The arms and legs move.

We were cold by then, and so we walked a short distance back to a bakery where we had coffee. I had a cinnamon roll, and Mike had a scone.

Coffee was sounding pretty good, if only to warm our hands on the cup.

There were a few items on our grocery list, and so we headed into the more modern section of town to a small grocery store. The store was well stocked, except for the toilet paper shelves, where there was just one roll of toilet paper. Even this town of 3,800 has not escaped the panic. Outside the store was this frog panning for gold.

From there, we drove back to the RV to put away our groceries. We found the kitties napping in tandem.

Even on a cloudy day, the light was too bright for their tender kitty eyes.

We put away the groceries and then set out for Jamestown...one of the towns mentioned in the original article. We'd driven by on our way in to the RV park, and we'd crossed this one lane bridge with our RV. That was more than a little scary.

There was supposed to be a quilt shop here, but when we arrived at the address, it was boarded up with a "for rent" sign. Bummer.

There was another in nearby Sonora, and I called first to make sure it was open. Sure enough, and we went. I'll tell you about that in a separate post.

For now...let's just take a stroll down the historic main street of Jametown.

This was the first sign we came to.

Continuing our window shopping, I remarked that I'm certainly glad I'm too young to remember corsets. Honestly...they must have been so uncomfortable.

Moving on...cats will never go out of style.

I love seeing the years on these old buildings. Too bad about the cars, but they lined both sides of the street.

If you'd like to do some gold prospecting while we're here, this store below will sell you all the equipment you need.

Here's another old hotel.

Walking along the boardwalk in front, it looks like this.

I liked this window...from all appearances, there has been an actual cat sleeping in the bed behind the sign. The store was closed, but I have a feeling there is a cat-in-residence here.

I wonder how it feels about the dogs.

From there, we drove to the quilt shop, and then back to the RV. Along the way, we've seen these beautiful trees in bloom. I haven't been able to see them up close, and so it's hard to know what this is. Maybe one of you knows.

Also, we passed by this structure on our way in. I wasn't able to get a picture until yesterday, but it kind of gave me a chuckle. Who puts together a posse these days? Haven't SWAT teams taken over doing what a posse used to do?

Before starting out on our travels yesterday, I made a Lemon Meringue Tart for Two for Pi Day. It's not technically a pie, but that didn't stop me.

It was so easy and so good. We cut it in half, and this is how it looked inside.

It was a nice little taste of lemon meringue without being too much. You can find the recipe for this right here. If you want to give it a try, be sure to include the recipe for the associated crust for two. I didn't make the crust from scratch. When we're in the RV, I always use Pillsbury, and it worked out fine.

So today, we really are going to relax and stay in. It has been raining for about 12 hours straight, and we expect the rain to continue for the next two days. There are still two nearby gold rush towns we want to visit, but we're keeping our fingers crossed for better weather tomorrow. We're not really expecting it, but that won't stop us. For today, we'll relax, cozy up, and stay warm. I'll be back a little later to tell you about the quilt shop. You people who love vintage sewing machines will especially enjoy this shop. Also, I'll be working on my slow-stitching. Mike is immersed in a book. Speaking of books, if you're interested the Kindle version of "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" is available on Amazon for 99 cents right now. It's available as an audiobook for just $1.36. I haven't read it before, and so I picked up the audio version just now.