Hangin' out in Mariposa!

After yesterday's insanity, we thought we would scale things back a notch today! I had sorta' invisioned gold panning today but then reconsidered when I saw the temp's were going to be a little hot today. I could just see some old, beardy guy having a captive audience (US!) and keeping us swishing in some creek for 6 hours then demanding we hand over the two flakes of gold we might have found - so that idea went south. Instead, we headed to the old gold mining town of Mariposa and shopped the little stores in the downtown area. What fun! I found Dennis' anniversary gift for me - he is so good to me (and has such excellent taste!) haha It was a large turquoise and sterling silver ring created by a Native American from AZ that was a bit pricey, but so worth it! Lovely! Then we went on to an antique store and a clothing store. I almost purchased 2 shirts but Dennis suggested I try them on first. Good thing too. One had a neckline that hit my ankles - OUT! - and the second one had stiching over the left side of the chest with that white, stiff stuff underneath. You know, the stuff they back the stiching with. When I put it on, my left boob looked like a it was shaped like a square. Not a good look on me, maybe somebody else. OUT! So that was fun. Then we headed to the Mariposa Museum to see the beginnings of the mining town and they had all kinds of cool stuff- even a pump organ like Dad's! All along route 49 are these old mining towns with some shady histories of murdering thieves and people who struck it rich. And some who were probably both! We had lunch then headed back to the house for a dip in the pool and some R and R. Dennis decided to hike some of the property which is really steep! I said "have a great time, see you later! Take the cell phone and in case a mountain lion shows up, look big and scream at it. They usually run away...usually. Have a good time!" I layed in the hammock and read about the mining town histories. He finally came back and had a big cow skull hanging off the back of his backpack. He said he'd found the skeleton and it looked like something had been chewing on it. Nice.... The skull was pretty cool though, and we'll have to see if we get it home in the luggage without setting off any alarms. Tomorrow we will be headed on to the Winchester House tour and a stay in Carmel. Back to the cool coast for us!!!