I was pulling out photos for this post and realized I had 27 I wanted to share. So we’ll do this across a few days instead, okay?
In the meantime, you should definitely check out Amy Lane’s wonderful post about our group adventures!
And the thing is, Amy is amazing and so is her family. I was feeling itchy-footed and claustrophobic, and on Facebook I threw out a road trip suggestion. Which may have been more of a plea than a suggestion, really. Amy took me up on it and then, as we discussed our mutual interest in ghosts in gold rush country, proposed a fantastic itinerary. And not only that! Her Mate and 2 younger kids were up for it, as was my younger kid, so we had a whole group.
They live a couple hours north of us, so we met at Denny’s because nobody should hunt ghosts on an empty stomach.
This is in Newcastle, and this place is supposed to be haunted. As we walked by, the owner popped out, told us a couple of ghost stories, and invited us all inside to see the photos of the town’s history, which he has posted on the wall. I can’t verify the ghost legends, but Mr. Antuzzi is a friendly guy.
Next stop was Foresthill, which some of you may know from Amy’s Little Goddess series. We went to the cemetery, which is really pretty, with a gorgeous view.
A lot of the people in this cemetery were born elsewhere and dragged themselves—or were dragged by their parents—to California during the gold rush years.
I can’t even imagine how tough life must have been.
Although many of the graves are old, some are recent. Like this one. I never met this woman but I admire her.
We tromped around the cemetery happily until the kids spotted a used condom on the ground and started asking questions, at which point the grown-ups decided it was time to move on. Tomorrow I’ll post about our next stops.
But first I need to take a moment to appreciate Amy’s Mate. Not only did he get up early on a Sunday so we could drag him around in the mid-90s heat, but he took all the kids (including mine) in his car so Amy and I could be in mine. I say that qualifies him for sainthood.
Oh, is that “praying boy” gravestone one of those metal memorials? I love to go through old cemeteries myself, and have noticed that in the 1870s-1880s there seems to have been a fad for gravestones made from metal. I don’t know what sort of metal was used, but they have held up very well, with little deterioration. (Unlike the gravestones made from both marble and slate, which don’t weather very well at all.)
Most of that piece is stone but the plate with the name, date, etc is metal. I imagine getting anything large and heavy to rural California was really expensive at the time, but there was plenty of local granite available for carving! I do think most of the local stones are granite, although I’ve seen marble too. And some stones have definitely weathered better than others.