Sunday Drive - Memorial Day Weekend

Gerry woke me up Sunday morning and said "let's go for a drive".  So we headed out on I-80 east to Auburn.  In Auburn we turned on to Highway 49 towards Grass Valley.  We stopped in Grass Valley at Paulette's Country Kitchen for a late breakfast.  This building use to be a bank.  I forgot to take pictures of what we had...I had a waffle combo, which was a waffle, one scrambled egg and two sausage links.  It included warm maple syrup and melted butter to spread on my waffle.  Gerry had two eggs, country potatoes and an english muffin...coffee for him and OJ for me.  His cup was never empty.

 The outside of Paulette's Country Kitchen.

We got back on Highway 49 and drove to Downieville.  This is an old mining town dated back to the Gold Rush days.  There are historical markers all over the town.

 The bridge that crosses the river on the way out of town on Highway 49.

One section of Main Street.

We got back into Roseville around 6 pm and stopped at Arigato's Sushi for some dinner.  My Caterpillar roll and Philly roll.

Gerry's Aloha Roll (it has slices of jalapeno peppers on it and a Pacfic Roll.

We spent about an hour or so in Downieville.  It is nestled in a forested canyon at 2,950 feet.  The town looks a lot like it did during the Gold Rush Days, over a century ago.  This is the northern reaches of the Sierra Nevada and was one of the foremost cities during that time.  There are a lot of historical buildings in the town that are still being used today.   The town is situated on the confluence of two streams, the Downie River and the North Fork of the Yuba River.

I think this was the 3rd time we've driven to Downieville...one of the times was on an Easter Sunday.  We went to church, out to eat then decided to go for a drive.  When we got to Downieville, it had snowed the night before.  The mountains and meadows were beautiful with pure white snow.

We continued on Highway 49...we did see some snow on the side of the mountains.  There was a storm that came throught last Thursday and it snowed in the mountains.  We drove throughYuba Pass at 6,701 feet.  From there the highway drops down into a valley and the town of Sierraville.  Highway 49 continues north....we turned onto Highway 89 which goes into Truckee.  We stopped at a Starbucks so Gerry could get some coffee and then got on I-80 heading towards Sacramento.  Leaving Truckee we crossed Donner Summit at 7400 feet.

We stopped in Roseville at Arigato's Sushi and had some sushi.  Their rolls are always 50% off.  We were home by 7pm after leaving here about 10 am or so.  It was a fun day, relaxing although it involved a lot of driving for Gerry...250 miles.

After we got home, I got a phone call from one of our neighbors.  She wanted me to come to her mobile because she had something for us.  Gerry walked down with me.  Chrissi is Filipino and I've been helping her prepare some documents...her husband was just diagnosed with brain cancer and had had surgery.  Anyway, she had 2 takeout boxes for us with some Filipino food.  We got back home, got some chopsticks and devoured what she had gotten for us.  I didn't think to take a picture...there was pancit, lumpia, shumai and chicken...a piece of fried chicken in one box and the other had pieces of chicken that were fried...also some balls that had been rolled in sesame seeds...the inside had some kind of black bean filling (I think)...it was good.  So then we were stuffed!!!  It was all so GOOD!!

Anyway, it was a very enjoyable day!!