Just a few miles outside the more famous Angels Camp (home of the Jumping Frog contest that pays homage to Mark Twain's famous story) is the beautiful old Motherlode town of Murphys.
The brothers Murphy, who were merchants and brought the first immigrant wagons over the sierras to John Sutter's fort in Sacramento in 1844, first went to Vallecito after the Gold Rush started in 1949.
Successful in mining, in what became known as "Murphy's Old Diggings," the brothers were more successful at merchants at their new location, which became known at "Murphys New Diggings."
A rare mining success story, the brothers retired rich and the area's name slimmed down to the current name over time. It was a very rich gold mining town and today is still a rather affluent area in Calaveras County.
Today's Murphys just oozes Motherlode charm. Dozens of wineries have tasting rooms lining the streets, along with boutiques, pubs, restaurants, and art galleries.
Before going into the town proper, we head about a mile south to take a stop at the massive Ironstone Winery, tasting room, and gardens.
While the wines are good and reasonable, we came to see the rest of the property which is filled with gardens, a lake, and plenty of wheelchair accessible trails to see them all.
It's also home to a very large and popular amphitheater that features top name entertainment in the summer.
Back up next to the tasting room is a museum, the star attraction is the Kautz Specimen, a 44 pound hunk of crystalline gold found in nearby Jamestown. It's the largest one in the world.
It's not uncommon for this little town to be chock full of tourists on the weekends so we opt to come midweek to have more of the town for ourselves. There a nice, flat handicapped parking space with plenty of room next to the public bocce ball courts behind the Murphys Hotel.
There's also an accessible public bathroom across the street and another steps away in the Community Park.
It's a hot day so we decided to start off by wetting our whistles. I saw a brewpub at the south end of downtown when we drove in with a very pleasant shady garden, so we make our way over there. Murphys Pourhouse is indeed at that garden but their customers can't use it. It belongs to the winery, Hovey, that takes up the front half of the building.
We content ourselves to drinking our cold pints indoors. Murphys Pourhouse does have garden seating outside but, today, it's under construction and doesn't look as nice as the winery garden out front.
Next time, it'll be the winery.
A couple of doors down is JoMa Ice Cream shop where some custom made ice cream and cookies also taste good on a hot day like this.
Continuing on, we make our way to the end of downtown on this street, culminating at the Art on Main gallery where some paintings tempt us but the prices leave us wanting to continue our search for house art in our local pawn, antique, and thrift shops.
Across the street is an interesting antique shop. Along with the normal stuff you seen in antique shops, the DEA Bathroom Shop specializes in vintage bathroom equipment. Alas, the shower heads that Letty really wants to buy for our bathroom can't be sold in California. They only ship those to other states because they do not meet our state's low flow requirements.
Continuing back the other way we have a light but very expensive late lunch a the Murphys Irish Pub while being serenaded by a guitarist with so-so original music.
I'd seen a little, hidden and narrow alley next to the pub building so I convinced Letty and Tim to follow me through to the other side. It ended up being the highlight of the day.
At the other end was Murphys Community Park. This is a gorgeous, tree shaded park with plenty of picnic tables, a bandstand, and playground bisected by Angel Creek where the kids, adults, and various dogs would scamper and splash in the cool, clear water.
To us, is looked like a little slice of Munich's Englischer Garten plopped down into the middle of the Motherlode.
I just could resist...I popped off my shoes and waded into the shallow and swift moving water. Letty soon joined me, while Tim resisted all our entreaties to come with us. It was very refreshing but rocky. Next time, we bring our water shoes with us.
While waiting for our feet to dry before putting our shoes back on, a couple with a very playful black lab showed up and played fetch with a stick it's owner through into the creek.
That dog showed us all how to have fun that day.
Walking back over to the car, we see the town's old 'pokey.' the jail.
We say goodbye to the inmate and then head back home. It was a wonderful day in this great Gold Country town.
Darryl Musick
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