Bonfante Gilroy Gardens Holiday Lights – Coyote Lake
Posted by Karen on 05-Dec-2009
Grass Valley Cornish Christmas
Posted by Karen on 04-Dec-2009
(Click photo for all 49 photos)
Lori and I headed up to Grass Valley to enjoy their Cornish Christmas Fair, and we arrived a bit early so we decided to see what the the little historic town of Washington looks like. Washington is a old gold mining town that I thought might be a ghost town, but it’s alive and kicking. There are a couple hundred residents, but main street only consists of a few buildings. We spent some time at the Yuba River photographing it from the bridge and as the sun went down, we headed back to Grass Valley and enjoyed the festivities of the street fair. There were lots of vendors selling hand-made gifts, the most delicious smelling food being cooked and delightful music being played by young musicians. We grabbed some freshly roasted chestnuts and listened to the carolers and had a relaxing stroll through the fair.
Empire Mine State Park
Posted by Karen on 28-Nov-2009
(Click photo for all 120 photos)
We’d planned on going up to Empire Mine State Historic Park yesterday for their Holiday Open House, but we decided to postpone because of the rain storm. Today was a much better day, even though it looked like it was going to be extremely windy. I went up by myself and it turned out to be a lovely day and the wind died down. Empire Mine State Park was once the largest and richest gold mine in California and was mined for more than 100 years until it was closed in the 1950s. This weekend was an open house, where docents are dressed in period costume and all the buildings were open for touring. All the buildings are well maintained seeing them all decked out for Christmas is a nice way to start the holiday season.
