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Moaning Caverns

What do you do on a rainy day spring break vacation to the Gold Country?

You go underground! 165 feet underground.

The “moaning” of the caverns are named for a sound that was emitted for the cave when the wind was right and the water table was in alignment. But the cavern is mostly silent now.

Moaning Caverns has one of the most interesting descents into a cavern. A spiral staircase spirals 16 stories down to the base of the main chamber. Our guide told us the age of the structure only when we were all at the bottom.

The steel staircase was built in 1922 making it just over one hundred years old! It is easy to lose your sense of depth while descending the spiral staircase; you always think the bottom is just around the next turn only to find yet another turn.

The start of the spiral staircase descent.

When you reached the bottom of the stairs you are in a vast cavern and our guide pointed out cloud-visions amongst the formations. Jaws there, a dragon up there, and a baddie from one of the Star Wars films. Some I could see while others were a complete stretch.

This seems to be a rule for naming cavern forms; a mixture of cultural references and food much like the differing names for Ursa Major: the Starry Plough, the Great Wagon, the Bear, and the Big Dipper. Different interpretations for the same object.

Is this a walrus, a creature from Jabba’s Palace, or a mutant pirate? It’s all in the eye of the beholder.

On my 16 story spiral accent I arrived a bit out of breath to see a former student (currently a 5th grader) who was about to spiral down into the cavern.

Her hand was bandaged to cover the stitches, as a result of her younger brother skiing over her hand at Dodge Ridge. I hoped she could navigate the stairs “one handed”.

I later found out that she did!

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Jumping Frogs of Calaveras County

It’s wonderful when a tall tale becomes a reality.

Such is the tale of the Jumping Frogs of Calaveras County. Legend has it that it was a yarn told in a bar in the Angels Hotel. The tale was picked up my a young writer Samuel Clemons. He later changed his pen name to Mark Twain.

He found early success with the publication of the short humorous piece, “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County“. Since that time be put Calaveras County, Angels Camp, and jumping bullfrogs on the map.

In 1928, the Jumping Frog Jubilee started in Angels Camp to commemorate the paving of Main Street. The completion has been hopping along ever since.

Angels Camp revels in it’s herp past.

I wanted to explore the arena for the unique contest at the Calaveras County Fairgrounds.

While today the contest in the main hall was roller derby not leaping frogs I found the outdoor stage that was the testing ground on the third weekend in May. I found a seat in the bleachers and sketched the stage with the beautiful green rolling hills of the Gold Country as my anchor sketch.

To the left of the spread I sketch a bust of Twain at the Angels Camp Museum.

The record jump (set in 1986) still is 21 feet and 5 3/4 inches. The frog jockey was Lee Giudici and the frog: Rosie the Ripiter.

Past winners are memorized on the side walk of Main Street (Highway 49) in Angels Camp.
The stages at the Calaveras County Fair.
This contest seems to maintain a healthy sense of humor as evidenced by this sign at the back of the stage.
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Mercer Caverns

There was a time our 5th graders attended the Sierra Outdoor School (SOS) near Sonora for outdoor education. Before they arrived to do the Duffle Shuffle at their new digs, they headed over to Murphys to do some spelunking at Mercer Caverns, so I thought I wouldn’t mind heading 16 stories underground.

This cavern system is not for the faint of heart, the exceedingly tall, or the claustrophobic.

It was “discovered” by its namesake Walter Mercer. Why the quotes? Well native Californians knew of the cavern’s existence at least 1,500 years ago and native remains were found in the caverns.

But on September 1, 1885, Mercer chanced upon the caverns in a search for water. He failed as a gold miner but struck pay dirt with this discovery. Here he was mining the tourists and thrill seekers.

A young stalactite grows slowly, very slowly.

Our guided tour lasted about 45 minutes and luckily I only hit my head once (near the exit).

It was also near the exit that Mercer took a big fall when his rope failed and he fell 30 feet. The fall killed him, it just took twelve years to do so. The fall caused injury to his neck and back and this later led to tuberculosis of the spine. He finally died from his fall on November 1, 1900. Mercer was 46 years old.

While I could not bring my sketchbook into the caverns, I was able to sketch the shack near the entrance. And there was a seated shelter to protect my sketch from the drizzle. This provided the anchor of the sketch.

Some older stalactites.
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Rainy Murphys Sketches

As my Gold Country Spring Break trip neared, rain (and snow flurries) were forecast from Sunday to Tuesday.

This throws a wrench into my sketching plans in my base camp of Murphys. Sketching with rain smears your efforts into a soggy mess. No matter. I would just use my waterproof, movable, sketching blind, ie my car!

I definitely had the historic Murphys Hotel on my sketch-list. Main Street in Murphys is a very busy place (especially on weekends) so arrived early in morning while visitors were sleeping off their wine induced stupors.

I easily found a spot across the street for a rainy day sketch of this Gold Country landmark. I pulled out my journal and began my sketch (featured sketch).

Street shamrocks adorns three intersections on Murphys’ Main Street.

While exploring the side streets of Murphys, I came upon the Murphys’ 1850 schoolhouse.

The rain taps were opened so I found a parking spot and sketched the profile of the school. I normally might have sketched the structure head on but because of the rain I was forced to sketch the school from a perspective I might not have considered.

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Calaveras Big Trees Redux

I returned with my sketchbook (a different sketchbook of course) to the North Grove Trail at Calaveras Big Tress State Park.

It was a Saturday in late March and the park was packed! The further along the trail I traveled, the less people there were.

Standing under a giant sequoia is a thing of beauty and wonder. And a great way to get a stiff neck.

I wanted to sketch the Mother of the Forest. This tree represent the human greed at it’s worst and human desire to exploit nature for profit. In 1854 the sequoia’s bark was stripped off in eight foot lengths. The bark was reassembled and displayed in New York and London, for profit of course.

Without the tree’s outer armor, the tree died. To some 19th century observers, this sparked outrage and people began to understand that these living giants needed to be protected and this shift in thinking gave rise to the redwood protection movement in California. And is the reason these trees are protected today.

These Sequoia specimens were given names and this is the base of the Lincoln Tree, named after the Great Emancipator.

I picked a sketching spot against a shed-sized boulder near marker number 18 and started a sketch that looked into the grove (featured sketch). The view sketched is looking into the heart of the grove where the large trees can be from 800 to 3,000 years old! I included a group of four for scale.

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The Red Buildings of Tuolumne County

There are three prominent red buildings I wanted to sketch in Tuolumne County in the towns of Sonora and Jamestown.

My first stop was Jamestown and Railtown 1897 State Historic Park.

The State Park includes the freight depot and the roundhouse and turntable of the Sierra Railroad. Housed inside the roundhouse are four of the railroad’s steam locomotives.

One or two of the locomotives are still active and operate on weekends in the summer months. None is more famous than Sierra No. 3.

Three of my favorite No. 3 films are: High Noon, Man of the West, and Unforgiven.

After sketching the roundhouse, I sketched the freight depot, which is now the visitors center and gift shop. This building was featured at the beginning of Anthony Mann’s Man of the West (1958). This is one of Gary Cooper’s last westerns and the last featuring Sierra No. 3 in a Cooper film. Their most famous film was the classic High Noon (although they never appeared in the same scene).

The freight depot. The passenger depot burned down on Thanksgiving Day 1978.

A few days later, I wanted to sketch one of the most photographed churches in the entire Gold Country, which is to be found in the town of Sonora.

This is St. James’ Episcopal Church (1859) also known as The Red Church. The church is build of redwood in a Carpenter Gothic style.

Getting a good sketching perspective was tough because number one, it was raining outside and I needed to do a car sketch yet I couldn’t find parking with an unobstructed view of the church looking up Highway 49. So I found a great perspective from the second story of the parking structure, looking down on the church (featured sketch).

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Coulterville and Whistling Billy

On my Spring Break Gold Country sketch list was an eight ton wood burning narrow gauge steam locomotive that was shipped around the Horn and delivered to Coulterville in 1887.

The locomotive operated on a four mile line hauling car loads of gold quartz ore from the Mary Harrison Mine just south of Coulterville to a stamp mill. Billy was abandoned in 1904 but was later refurbished and put on static display in the 1930s, where it remains today.

This is the pride and joy of Coulterville. Whistling Billy is displayed across Highway 49 from the Hotel Jeffery under the shade of the town’s hanging tree.

The Hotel Jeffery. While the building still stands the business is closed. Notable lodgers include: President Theodore Roosevelt (on his way to tour Yosemite), John Muir, and Mark Twain. Like most historic hotels in the Gold Country, this one is supposedly haunted.
Whistling Billy in beautiful Gold Country Spring sunshine.

I did two sketches of the diminutive locomotive each featuring the hanging tree.

Sketch number one.
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Birds of Sydney: Parrots

In my neighborhood you occasionally see posters tacked up on a power poles about missing animals, mostly dogs or cats but sometimes parrots that have flown away from their gilded cages.

The only parrots seen flying in my neighborhood are escapees. Exotics in a strange land.

Parrots, especially macaws, Amazons, cockatoos, and budgerigars, are some of the most recognizable birds species in the world because they are often pets. They frequently appear in media such as books, art, and movies. Show just about anybody an image of psittacines and they will say “parrot”.

My sixth grade class pet was a budgie (native to Australia). My grandma also had a budgie before I was born. Macaws and cockatoos are mainstays at zoos and animal parks where they frequently perform at shows showing off their intelligence, dexterity, and vocal abilities.

Just last year, an organization, Happy Birds, had an assembly at my school that was a parrot show featuring a very vocal Amazon and some macaws, including the largest parrot in the world: the hyacinth macaw.

A few summers before the parrot assembly I saw the beautiful big blue macaw in the Pantanal in Brazil. This is a wild and free hyacinth macaw.

The first time I saw a free flying wild macaw (scarlet macaw) was in Costa Rica. I saw many more on birding trips to Ecuador and Brazil.

It was so unreal to see a pair of scarlet macaws flying in Costa Rica without thinking they had just escaped from a nearby zoo.

Macaws on the wing in Brazil.

Seeing these iconic parrots flying free over a rainforest, proclaiming themselves with their raucous hymns is an unforgettable natural experience.

If looking at this a photo one thinks it is taken at a zoo but no, this is a wild blue and yellow macaw in the Pantanal in Brazil.

Now I turn to the county of Australia and it’s “escaped” parrots of Sydney. The most iconic for me are the sulphur-crested cockatoo and the rainbow lorikeet (featured sketch). Both are common in the Emerald City.

My Australian mate (a former student’s parent) and a former Sydney resident told me about seeing the iconic sulphur-crested cockatoo almost everyday simply blew my birding brain making me want to go Down Under to see them for myself.

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March 25, 1932

Today would have been my dad’s 93rd birthday.

He left us almost 10 years ago. I chose to sketch one of my favorite objects I have: his Motorman’s hat.

On a recent visit to the Western Railway Museum, where my dad was a volunteer motorman, I bought a copy of a dvd about the museum called “Ride Through History”.

The dvd is narrated by rail enthusiast and Bay Area Radio Hall of Famer Fred Krock and follows Peninsular Railway No. 52 as it rides around the museum and on to the former Sacramento Northern tracks.

Car 52 rides out to the end of the line at Bird’s Landing Road (about six miles) and then changes ends to head back to the museum.

As the car heads back, there is an over the shoulder shot of the motorman and the rails ahead that reach out to the horizon. The man in the foreground is my dad!

There is a special feeling of joy and sadness upon seeing my father doing something he loved but also the finality of his passing.

A photo I took of my dad, the streetcar motorman.

In remembrance, I sketched his hat and a still from the dvd.

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The Jensen Carhouse

On Saturday I headed out to the Western Railway Museum, and I was hoping that they had enough volunteers to open the Jensen Carhouse.

The impressively large carhouse was built between 2004 and 2008 at an expense of $2.5 million. The indoor storage facility is the most ambitious project the museum has ever undertaken. It allows some of the museum’s vintage cars, locomotives, and streetcars to be stored and protected from the sun, rain, and wind of Solano County.

The only problem: if they do not have enough volunteers, the carhouse does not open to the public.

On my past two visits, the doors remained locked and closed.

The six bays of the Jenson Carhouse.

This Saturday, the carhouse would be open! And I had a few residents that I wanted to sketch!

The number one resident I wanted to sketch was the Western Pacific 4-6-0 steam locomotive No. 94.

Two ends of the transit spectrum: steam and electric. Western Pacific’s No. 94 and Sacramento Northern’s No. 652.

Western Pacific 94 was built by American Locomotive Company in 1909. The twenty locomotives in this class were used for passenger service. WP was an early adopter of diesel power and steam ended on the WP in April of 1953. 94 was kept for excursion service. The locomotive was last operated on August 22, 1960 when it was on point of the California Zephyr between Niles and Oakland as part of the 50th anniversary of the passenger service. 94 was donated to the museum in 1979.

The next piece of transit history I sketched was the newly arrived BART legacy A Unit No. 1164. Three units were delivered to the museum in October of 2024 and are now stored in the Jensen Carhouse. BART went into service September 11, 1972 and the original legacy fleet was retired after 52 years of service. The three units donated to WRM have logged more than 15 million miles while in service.

No. 94 seems to dwarf the BART A Unit.

The last denizen I sketched in the carhouse is perhaps my favorite. It is San Francisco’s MUNI PCC car No. 1016. This PCC was built in 1951 by the St. Louis Car Company as part of the last batch of PCCs built in the United States.

I have always loved the rounded streamlined design of PCC cars and the green and cream livery is my favorite paint scheme. This livery was developed in 1946 and features the MUNI wings.

MUNI’s famous wings on K-type car No. 178. This car type is affectionately known as an “iron monster”.