Step back into history to the vibrant era of the 1849 Gold Rush! A single Eureka! event changed history forever in early January of 1848. Sutter's Mill on the American River would become California’s first gold discovery site. Make a journey along circuitous Gold Country backroads and visit museum-quality mining towns on a tour from ‘California's Golden Triangle' via Sacramento, Lake Tahoe, and Yosemite National Park, in a region covering one-fifth of the Golden State's most scenic geography. Whether exploring the first gold strike on the American River South Fork or visiting State Highway 49's Golden Chain of mining towns, explore the 300-mile adventure to legendary gold mines, surrounding lakes, rivers, and streams. It's a path of history bringing the miners to the goldfields and their magnetic, frantic lust for gold in a quest for the precious mineral generating the single largest mass migration ever recorded. The Gold Country offers legendary lodging, handcrafted goods, delicious farm to fork foods, craft beer, wine, and spirits, with an unlimited choice of vacation and recreational opportunities. With a 50-year career living in the Sierra Nevada foothills and dozens of twists and turns later over the rigorous curves of California State Highway 49’s steep river canyons, the first impressions of Sutter’s Mill encouraged a new book, California Gold Country Explorer. Once covered with tent camps, ghost towns, and gold mines spread over one-fifth of the entire Golden State, the Golden Chain includes recreational areas, starting from Sacramento, Lake Tahoe, and Yosemite. The pocketbook highlights travel in 14 Gold Country Destination Tours taking an insider’s view at foothill and mountain destinations. Readers become acquainted with the details from several notable personalities quoted while living in California. Whether exploring James W. Marshall’s first gold strike on the American River South Fork or visiting antique mining towns, lasting memories remain of Mark Twain’s wit, Lola Montez’s Spider Dance, and the countless efforts of 49er argonauts on the path of history into the legendary centers of wealth. California’s Sierra Foothills uncover the ineffable charm and treasure pursued by visitors to today’s legendary Sierra landscapes and its historical lodging, handcrafted goods, delicious farm to fork foods, local craft beer, wine, and spirits. One enters a unique portal of Sierra Nevada Foothill towns complemented by 49er hospitality and a sense of deep commitment. However, the story is much larger than mines or the quest for Gold Rush nuggets, but unfolds with individual pioneer accounts of determination becoming successes and sorrows. I began publishing my first California touring books during the mid-1990s and witnessed mining towns in transition all along the Golden Chain. With the new generation of businesses and settlers had begun renovating old buildings and repopulating the foothills, the Sierra Nevada foothills’ interconnected towns and highways reflect the clear example of true core American values. The Gold Rush defines the beginning of California’s serendipitous history drawn in a ‘mythical’ time called the Gilded Age, representing one of the most evolutionary times in modern America. The golden era is a time capsule of adventure and exploration over an immense region, in a land from the Sierra to the Sea. I am hopeful this new travel edition will enable readers to gain a far better sense of the Golden State’s pivotal role in American history and enjoy a trip into the countryside. The golden era is a time capsule of adventure and exploration over an immense region, in a land from the Sierra to the Sea. I am hopeful this new travel edition will enable readers to gain a far better sense of the Golden State’s pivotal role in American history and enjoy a trip into the countryside. From a background studying jazz piano influenced by hitch-hiking and visiting New Orleans in the 60s, leaving New Jersey behind, an opportunity crossing shores led from the Susquehanna to Acapulco. 1967, after leaving the Army Band HQ at Fix Dix, after absorbing the traditions and background of the New York's sophisicated jazz culture, all transformed with a trip to New Orleans, then onto California. A starring appearance as a Back-to-the-Lander on 30-acre homestead in the Sierra Nevada Foothills during 12 years followed the flow into the 80s to marketing and branding business in Palo Alto to Silicon Valley while attending glorious top edge jazz gigs at night. Performing his own piano skills on gigs at the OAW in Oceanside, Robert is a master travel writer and completed self-pubished books on California's limitless interior of forests, lakes, streams, and mountains bringing acclaim. A discovery of 150-glass negatives from the 1920-1930s furthered the quest following California history with Baja conquisadors, Spanish and Californio land barons, meek and gallant friars, bearing the crux conversions the native neophytes