We Remembered a Friend with Twin Pines in December, and Celebrate 170 Years of Golden History Today

January 24, 1848, a hard working man named James Marshall looked down into the cold waters of the South Fork of the American River running through the mill race at Coloma, and the story of the pretty little valley was destined to change once again.

Seventy years ago a huge Centennial celebration was held and a stamp was issued showing what became a rather well known scene with the mill and two pines which grew close by, and very close to each other, so close that they almost seem to be grown together, perhaps they are. I have gathered together here several images I have found showing the trees, and the mill at its original site, which at this time is sometimes in, sometimes out of the riverbed.

Visitors at that large centennial celebration in 1948 lined up  at the Coloma post office to send out first day of issue letters to those family and friends they could think of. These are very popular collectibles now, and a lot of the covers have the two trees and mill on them.

I have a couple of postcards that show the lines of happy people waiting to mail their choice of first day covers.  There were many choices, some even hand painted!

There are several postcards you can still find that have copies of lithographs of the mill that show the two pine trees.

Those pines grace the cover of history books:

 They even get gilded and stamped onto coins for the local event!

The replica of Sutter's Mill at the Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park in Coloma has recently been relocated from near to the Grange Hall and Bayne Road Bridge to much closer to the spot where the mill actually stood in 1848.  Park Superintendent Barry Smith had been considering planting Ponderosa pines to replicate the old lithographs. In the spring last year we lost a dear friend, Tony Angi. Tony had many ties to Coloma, Lotus, Garden Valley, the Divide, and many, many friends.

Our good friend Dick, and Tony's very good friend Paul asked the Ranger if we could plant trees in Tony's honor, and everyone discovered he was on the same page! We all got called to meet in Coloma on Friday, December 1st, at 2:00 p.m. What a beautiful day it was! I was able to drive down Bayne Road past a beautiful two story farmhouse with a wrap around porch which Tony designed and which sits almost directly across from the gold discovery site.

On December 1, 2017 we who could (retired folk, mainly, Rich had to work) gathered at the park and Ranger Barry introduced himself and there were quite a few staff there, and although we had brought shovels and some even wore gloves (good guy, David!) we found they had already very carefully planted the trees.

After he was introduced, Paul entertained us with his stories of his friendship with Tony, which went back forty years, to when Tony had first come to Lotus. I think Paul looks like what I used to call "a miner 49er" when I was a little girl.

The photo below is of Kathy, Tony's wife, and Dick, his good friend and associate.

The Ranger had an amusing story about the golden shovels that we each used to add a scoop full of fertilizer to the trees. They were forgotten in a closet at the park but were perfect for this ceremony,
with the mill's outline stenciled on each one.

Above Tony's son addresses us and below Craig helps a little one with her scoop.

The photographer Cheryl below finally is in a shot herself. She is fiancé to Craig, above.

Pam, wife of Dick, puts muscle into her gardening, she excels at zumba and golf, so she can shovel with the best of them!

Oh, and yes, I was there too. I was trying to show off the mill on my shovel.

And finally, below, here we all are, Tony's friends and family, and we will be checking on his trees, because most of us live close by, and if any of us are still around for the 200th year celebration perhaps we can mail a new stamp with an image of Tony's trees.

What's Penny Wearing? #149 Vintage "Campus Girl" Quilted Calico Bathrobe

I found the cutest vintage robe at Junkee in Reno, the last time Lori and I went up there to visit our friend Tamra.
We had such a great visit; we LOVE going up there to see her.
And I also got to meet her significant other Gordon, too, for the first time.
They have a lovely home, and she fixed us a wonderful dinner one night.
She also took us around to thrift shops - a favorite pastime, as you well know.
I always want to shop at Junkee, too - I know I'll find some cool vintage stuff in that fabulous shop.
Even though I am writing this very late, I wanted to say a very special thank you to Tamra and Gordon, from Lori and I, both!!
So - here's the vintage robe:

Quilted cotton, with lace trim on the collar and pockets...

Cute yellow buttons down the front:

The sweetest detail with a bow in the back.....

I'm virtually positive it's from the mid-to-late 1960's.

The label alone is one indication of date!
"Styled By Campus Girl, Inc."

Super-cute, totally "granny chic" ; hey - I'm a Granny and I'm cool with that!
And it even FITS me.

But I'm still trying to decide whether to keep it or sell it!

The Last Leg Of Our Trip

Well, I must admit that it's taken me a good, long time to get around to this, but better late than never - and I still wanted to post it, so here goes....
The very last leg of our sisters road trip in May included a visit to Spokane, and a really nice visit with Lori's sister-in-law, Betsy and her family. They welcomed us with open arms and a great dinner the night we arrived.
She and her husband Scott live in a really neat old house that was built in 1918:

Here's a pic of Betsy and me. This was taken across the street from her house - we actually were lucky enough to be able to stay at her mother-in-law's home while she was away - thank you so much, Darlene!
(The white house you see in the background is next door to Darlene's.))

Betsy took us around to a few thrift shops, which is always fun - and then we went and had lunch at Hogan's, a really cute diner with great food.

We had SUCH a nice time with them, and I also got to meet Betsy's daughters Megan and Maryn, and they are both delightful young women.
 I'm afraid I rather talked their ears off that evening, but they truly did not seem to mind.
I love old houses SO much, and there were so many things about their house that I loved!
A cozy living room, a marvelous old kitchen, nice front porch, great back yard - like I said, so many things!
 I would practically kill for a huge basement like they've got - oh, the storage space seemed to go on for days!
Believe it or not, another thing I was crazy for was this old linoleum tile:

I'd love to have a floor like that in my house.
But this one, below was my favorite!

THAT would be absolutely perfect in our kitchen!
Here's another picture of a similar floor:

And back in 2000, Armstrong was selling a flooring called Spatterdash, which I wanted SO badly.
 Here's a photo of an ad featuring it, which I shared in a previous post:

But we have not been able to replace our old and ailing flooring yet. Hopefully we will, one day.
Okay - back to the subject of our trip (yes, old houses will distract me , that's a fact!)

Betsy and Scott also took us out to dinner at Waddell's; it was SO good.
I had their Caesar Salad and it was fantastic, but my favorite thing was when I tried Lori's Sweet Potato Fries with their dipping sauce!
I would really like to recreate that stuff at home - it was seriously good!
When Lori and I were on our way out of town, we were able to make a quick stop to see Chaps.

 The line at the register was so long that I didn't get to pick up one of these yummy-looking pastries:

All I had time to do was snap these few photos inside and out, and we hit the road again.

The one last - and VERY important - thing we wanted to do on our road trip was stop and meet our friend Deanna in Oregon.
It made us SO happy that we were able to work it out!
It happened to be her birthday, and we took her some flowers:

We "met" her through this blog, which she discovered because she had done Google searches looking for certain vintage items, and she'd found that I had written about quite a few of them over the years!
She is the same age as Lori, and through this blog, we found that we had SO many things in common.
Lori had also been able to meet her sister Linda, back when she was working in the Bay Area.
I'm so sorry to say that Linda lost her battle with cancer in the summer of 2016.
Here is a photo I took of Lori and Deanna:

Deanna, you were an absolute delight - and we would have stayed all darned day AND night visiting with you, if we hadn't needed to - you guessed it - hit the road again!
Thank you so much for welcoming us into your home, and I do hope we meet again one day!
Because that would be a very nice day, indeed.
I bought the card seen below from Deanna, because I simply fell in love with her artwork!

 Isn't it just so wonderfully bright and beautiful?!
She sells gorgeous cards made with prints of her photographs.
Below is a photo of her set-up from a church bazaar; I'm sure you'll agree that her photos/cards are fabulous!

 So, I think that does it, as far as my posts about our trip - although, you never know about me - I could pop in sometime with something I'd forgotten.
 But I know that I won't EVER forget about the great times we shared on that trip with family and friends both old and new.
 (At least I finally got this post finished and published before the year was out; since it seems that I am hopelessly behind on pretty much everything!)

On To Washington State: Ridgefield & Vancouver

The day Lori and I left the Tillamook Cheese Factory on our trip last May, we headed up to Washington.
We have a cousin who lives in Ridgefield, Washington, and we got to stop and have a visit with her.
She took us to Battleground, and we had just barely enough time to visit a few shops there before closing time, including  Urban Basics And Company and Rusty Glamour. I loved every shop we went into!
Here is an article about our cousin Stephania that had JUST been in the paper the day before!

I can't even think about forgiving myself for forgetting to get pictures with her while we were there, but here is a photo of our dear cousin Stephania and her husband Richard:

 We had visited them back in 2007 when we went up there, but at that time they lived in Washougal. We also got to see our cousin Madeline (her sister) during that same trip at her studio and home in Portland, but I'm sorry to say that both Madeline and their third sister Mary Ann have passed away.
We didn't get to spend enough time with them, and I am truly hoping to be able to go back soon and stay longer.
Little did we know (although I believe I had a sort-of "feeling" about it at the time, so inside, somehow, I DID know, apparently), we were, literally, right across the street from where my friend Kari works! I mean, she would have been leaving work, and we were right there - it was nuts! I kept saying "For all I know, Kari could be right here somewhere...", and things to that effect. Well, she WAS, as it turned out. I was trying to reach here but I didn't know the name of her boss, nor the address where she worked. Oh, and in my haste, I was sending my texts to another friend, rather than to her! I didn't even know that at the time, because my friend was busy and didn't have time to reply until later. We learned all of this later, and it was an interesting conversation!
We had arranged to arrive at Kari's house right around the time she got home from work.
We were delighted to be able to stay at her home again (we'd been there 10 years prior, as well).
We had a great time with her. She's like the little sister I never had, me being the youngest.
We went out to dinner at Farrar's Bistro in Vancouver, and it was superb in every way.
We also went to a couple of thrift stores, and she even found some great, very reasonably-priced outfits for her office job.
(It was on that same day that I bought the skirt I wrote about back in this post.)
She also works part-time at the fabulous Heathman Lodge, and she took us there so we could see it.
What a gorgeous place!
Here's a pic of Kari and me that Lori took while we were there:

(I love that little gal SO much!)
We were there at just the right time to enjoy happy hour at Hudson's Bar and Grill, so we made that our early dinner that evening, and it was fabulous, too.
I mean, check out this menu. Yum!
I took this picture of a gorgeous Pendleton blanket we saw at the gift shop there at the Lodge - simply because I LOVE Pendleton!

 I found this little vintage mirrored advertising thermometer/picture at one of the thrift stores we visited:

I loved it - but Kari fell in love with it, too - and I mean she LIVES there!
So it stayed with her, and she took it and hung it up by her desk at work.
I like knowing that it's there.
And I hope to be able to go back and visit HER before another gosh-darned ten years go by, for Pete's sake!
(Please, Travel-Gods or whomever, help me save up enough dollars to make that happen - sooner rather than later!)

Road Trip Stop:Tillamook Cheese Factory

Okay, so yes - our road trip was back in May.
 But I'm only just now finally getting around to writing some of the posts I wanted to share about our trip!
No more excuses, just content.
When Lori and I were not staying with family and friends, we attempted to find the least expensive lodgings available.
Some of the places reflected that fact in an unfortunate way, but we wanted cheap, and you get what you pay for.
Lesson learned.
We were delighted, however, with our accommodations at
  Surfside Oceanfront Resort in Rockaway Beach, Oregon.
I want to go back and stay there again for more than just one night. We had a family suite, which meant we each had our own bathroom, the separate bedroom had another TV, and there was a full kitchen, too. I was able to stay up late and not disturb Lori in any way. For us, that was perfect.
We were able to visit the Tillamook Cheese Factory while we were in the area.
 I took pictures of some of the large photos that were hanging up on the walls.
We had last been there in 1966! Our family took camping trips when we were growing up, and one of the longer ones {which was that summer} took us all the way up into British Columbia.
That trip included tours at not only Tillamook, but also the Olympia Brewing Company in Tumwater, Washington.
 (Daddy used to drink Olympia Beer. I just watched "The Graduate" last week and Benjamin Braddock was drinking it, too, in the movie!)
I didn't remember very much about the cheese factory tour we went on back then, other than huge long vats full of cheese curds, and getting a sample of their wonderful cheddar cheese at the end, which has always been my favorite.
We were only able to see their Temporary Visitor's Center, which  meant no tour this time. We still enjoyed the visit very much, and each of us made some purchases, and we also had some ice cream while we were there.
And, why not?

You have to know I could not resist a photo "op" inside this VW!

And here it is - and here I am:

Click here to read an article about what happened three years ago to their fabulous little orange VW mini buses that were being hauled with this rig:

I had to bring home one of the little mini VW orange buses - it was just too cute to pass up!
I hope to be able to go back there again after they have their Visitor's Center Grand Reopening in 2018.
And just in case you thought I was kidding about liking the cheese, this is what we happen to have in our refrigerator right now here at home:

We're cheese people, folks. Plain and simple.
I also bought a souvenir tee shirt for my husband's birthday, which was two days after we got home from our two-week trip. It was his favorite gift, so I'm glad I thought of it!

Back to the ice cream: I found the flavor Lori had tried at the grocery store when we got back home:

Yes, it IS as good as it sounds!
(The one I tried that day was Malted Moo Shake - also fabulous, by the way!)
And later at a different store, I saw this pint of frozen custard, and I had to try it, as well:

It was good, but I still mourn the fact that I can't seem to buy a peach ice cream at the supermarket like whatever we used to get when we were kids. It was probably either Safeway's Lucerne brand, or possibly Crystal.
 I think I'll have to try making homemade peach ice cream some day, and see how that turns out!
Some day... yes, but it won't be anytime soon.