Take the time to meet someone new

While traveling back from Lake Tahoe, my brother and I stopped by Rainbow Orchards for hot apple cider doughnuts and some fresh pressed apple cider to take home. We left Lake Tahoe later than expected, so it was a quick stop, then off to Placerville to visit the Fountain and Tallman Museum. It’s a very small museum with a variety of artifacts on display in what used to be a soda works factory. It’s a historical building dating back to 1859.

A lovely, elderly woman greeted us and provided an overview of the two story museum. A narrow staircase takes you to the 2^nd floor displays housed in another small room.  The woman, who is a volunteer, also provides a paper for a walking town which gives the historic significance of the various buildings within a three block area.

A gentleman comes in and she goes begins her overview. He takes a look around the first floor, before making his way upstairs. A few minutes later a woman walks through the door. She recently moved to Placerville and wants to learn more information of the area and she wants to do some research on her home. She is advised to visit the County Museum where they would have the papers concerning historical properties.

The gentleman comes back downstairs and we learn he is from Edmonton, Canada who is driving the West and is making his way to Southern California. He is very interested in history, so I ask which direction he was going. He didn’t really have a plan, but I suggested visiting Old Sacramento and going to the Sacramento History Museum, the volunteer suggested touring the capitol and that’s when he realized Sacramento was the capitol of California. He says he kept thinking Los Angeles was the capitol. I explained why it is Sacramento, and how the influx of people moving to California during the Gold Rush is how California became a state. They quickly boosted the population. I suggested if he is driving along the Central Coast to check out Monterey, and if he was a reader of John Steinbeck, then he could visit the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas. I think between the volunteer and I the gentleman had plenty of options for his trip to our state.

After leaving the museum, I walked down the street to a bench in the shade and waited for my brother. A woman in her early 70s was sitting at the bench with her right leg stretch out. She had a cane to the left side of her. I learned she and her husband where driving back from Lake Tahoe and heading back home to Lake County. They spent the night in Placerville last Saturday, but it was busy with an Oktoberfest event, so they decided to stop when it was quieter and to have lunch at a Mexican restaurant they enjoyed on their last stop. While in the Tahoe area, they had also visited a hot springs. It was just a relaxing getaway for them.

So take the time to meet new people. They can have some interesting stories.