Nevada City.

Over the last few days I've been staying with my lovely roommate Lauren in her hometown of Nevada City, a Gold Rush town about three hours north of San Francisco. It's lovely to visit people at home, and it's different compared to travelling. Aside from being A LOT more relaxed, it's nice to get a sense of real American life.

  

 I took the Megabus from the Caltrain station in San Francisco (the train which links San Francisco and San Jose, another place I need to get round to visiting one of these days) to Sacramento, California's capital city two hours north of San Francisco. I honestly can't fault the Megabus - you get a choice of time, a reserved seat and free wifi for an incredibly cheap price . My return ticket cost $4.50! I'm so glad they've finally made cheap bus travel available in California - my friends here think the price is too good to be true!

The bus stops in Old Town Sacramento, which is very cute - it's set up like a real Western mining town! I was only here for half an hour, but I had enough time to walk around the block and take a few pictures.

I wondered how long this change machine has been in Old Town Sac?!

After Lauren picked me up, we headed another hour further north to Nevada City. The weather up here in the north tends to be quite a bit colder anyway, though California is seeing record low temperatures at the moment. In Lauren's garden, there are still a few smatterings of snow on the ground.

Arriving at Lauren's house!

We spent the next day driving in and out of Nevada City and its neighbouring town Grass Valley, (where my friend Morgan lives) looking around all of the cute shops and boutiques.

Grass Valley also has a cute movie theater, the Del Oro, where Morgan used to work.

We also stopped for a hot drink in a cosy cafe, Mekka, frequented by Lauren in her high-school days!

After an introduction to the area, the next day we caught up with Morgan. We stopped for an al fresco  lunch in the sunshine at The Briar Patch, the local whole foods store...

... before we went road-tripping in the valley, first stopping at the Yuba River. Apparently during the summer this is where everyone comes to swim and cool down in the 100F temperatures. It's a bit cold for that at the moment though - in some parts it was still iced over!

One of the things that always gets me about America is the sheer scale of the outdoors - the river here reminded me of High Force, but three times the size!

After we'd explored the river, we drove up to the Ananda Village, which is an Eastern-religion- practising peaceful community high in the mountains. While I found it slightly cult-like, I had to admit they had some great views over the valley below.

The sun was setting by the time we drove Morgan home - but we came across the old Wells Fargo bank from the Gold Rush days, so I had to get a shot.

The next day Lauren very kindly dropped me back of in Old Sac - such a fun trip!