Touring Sonora, California-Western Tour!

[R W Burgess]

What would a town do without a little gold. The winery noted above had this "little" piece of gold on display. As you can see, AACA President Mike Jones, was trying to make off with it. (sorry about the picture Mike) Of course this nugget is inside a large walk-in safe. That's because it weighs about 42 pounds.

With gold weighing 14 ounces per pound, you can figure out what this baby is worth.

[R W Burgess]

Last picture in the Winery Parking Lot!

[R W Burgess]

Some last words;

The Mother Lode Region put on one heck of a tour, on a shoestring, I might add. They only had about 9 months to pull this tour off for our 2009 Tour Schedule, well done. Registration fees were only $108.00 or so. We had two setdown dinners and everything else was on us, as the town of Sonora had plenty of specialty restaurants to choose from. I'd like to give special thanks to Frank Kilpatrick, Larry Gohr and wife, Ronni, and Duane (Dan)Bennett and wife, Marcia for making Dave Kontor and my trip very enjoyable. Hope to see you guys again, real soon.

Wayne

[keiser31]

Morgan +4

[Peter J.Heizmann]

Wayne,

As usual you post photos and comments very promptly so all of us on the Forum can enjoy it.

For this I thank you very much. Always enjoy your updates.

Peter J...

[R W Burgess]

Thanks Pedro,

I had forgotten one important place of business in Sonora. The day that we were in town, Dan Bennett had told us all about the oldest bar in town that had a special place in history. It happened to be the only bar in the State of California that sells beer, liquors, "guns", and "knives". Now, you'd know that any self respecting Easterner would certainly want to the see that. The Bar's name was The Sportsman! It was built in 1853 or so. As a matter of fact, 1/2 of the Town of Sonora was built before 1900. Old evidently is a relative term over there, as they believe in preserving buildings, instead of destroying them. Anyway, since we were busy all week, we had to make time on Wednesday evening to slip down to the Sportsman, it was only about 6 blocks from the host hotel. VP Joanna Cooper, David Kontor, and myself quickly walked down to the bar right after getting in off the road that afternoon. We came up to the bar to see it closed. Not to be deterred, Joanna starts knocking on the door, because she had seen the "barkeep's" shiny shaven head behind the bar. Dave and I were at the side of the bar, keeping a "lookout". Actually we were hiding, too embarrassed to beat on the door of a closed bar, much less one that sells guns!

Joanna keeps knocking and talks the guy into opening the door and letting us in. Oh, I forgot something! This bar also laid claim to having a 50 cal. pistol for sale. Talking about big guns out west!!! The barkeep was more than happy to have us visit and talk all about his gun's, knives, rifles, swords, and other weapons of "small destruction".

How about this ammo??

That's a 357 or 38 slug to the left, a 50 cal to the right. Makes new meaning to the statement that "He was blown away"!

These bullets were $5.00 a piece, then of course it shouldn't take more than one. Just fire off one in the area he is standing in. Joanna said that if the pistol went off the victim would probably die of a heart attack. The box of bullets were sold by the box too, $69.00 I think it was. When the pistol is shot, there is fire coming both out of the end of the barrel and the sides, from what I call a flash suppressor. I would say a two handed stance would be required here.

As a side note, since this bar was built during gold rush days, it had a basement with a dirt floor, still in use today. During its heyday, the owner would trade gold dust and flake for beer, guns, what have you. Well, since these were the ruff and tumble days, no bar owner would try to make it to the bank in the middle of night after closing to deposit his take for the day. But, again this bar was unique, in that it had a tunnel dug under ground into the street, taking a right turn and continuing under the street a couple blocks up to the bank for convenient "night deposits". This worked great for many years, but as time and gold passed Sonora by, the tunnel was shut down and forgotten, until the day that main street Sonora shut down because the tunnels collapsed and shut all traffic into Sonora down for the day!

What a story and a good way to end this Tour for 2009.

Wait, there's a rest of the story(RIP Paul Harvey)! It snowed today in Sonora! Only an inch, but enough to remind us that God loves old cars and car people.

Till next time!

Wayne

[jeff_a]

I enjoyed the photos of your tour in California, not only the autos, but the historic buildings and the scenery. Did you bring one of your own cars -- or travel in another?

The Peerless at Gold Country Auto Restoration looks a little like a 1913 that won "Most Elegant Closed Car" at the Ironstone Foundation Concours last September in Murphys, CA. Your first picture of it makes the people nearby look like they're 3 1/2 feet tall!

[R W Burgess]

Jeff, the car was really that large. I believe the employee with us also said it was the first car to have a generating system with an electric start. I hope that's right. This car was expected to be at a future large meet, but I missed where.....too much to see and do.

Wayne

[R W Burgess]

Sorry Jeff, I missed your first question.

No, Our eastern band of tourers did not tkae our cars, but flew to California to enjoy this tour. Each one of us rode with a different antique car owner each day, sometimes swapping cars at noon to get the chance to meet other AACA members.

Wayne