Murphys: As we planned our Sierra Color Quest trip to capture the Fall colors along both sides of the Sierra Nevada, taking two days to travel to the Eastern side seemed like a good idea.
Based on a passing tip from Karl, a friend who knows the area well, we landed in Murphys, California, an historic gold rush town, now morphed into a destination in the Sierra Nevada foothills.
Going on nothing more than a trust of Karl’s judgement, and some previous foothills experience that went well, Susie and I headed across the backroads of the Central Valley to our sight-unseen destination for the evening, The Victoria Inn in Murphys.
OK, sight unseen except for some web page images I saw when I booked our room for a one night stop. It’s always hit-or-miss when you book something online, but to our delight, this was a complete hit.
(Note: We do not barter or do trade-outs for reviews, so this is completely unbiased and based on our first-hand experience.)
While I prefer to let the pictures do the talking, our room was beautifully appointed, complete with a small balcony overlooking the side street location. The space was highlighted by the most massive four-poster we’ve ever landed in. Well, more like climbed in: you really did need the provided step-stool to get under the covers.
Just around the corner from our hotel’s side street was, of course, Main Street. What was once, in the mid 1800’s, a muddy venue lined with saloons, livery stables, hardware stores and perhaps other, more dubious enterprises, has now given way to sidewalk storefronts of hotels, wineries, restaurants and antique shops.
Insights into Murphys’ gold rush lineage still peek through today’s restored veneer. You can sense the past of the town that extracted many million-dollars’ worth of gold before the river beds were scraped clean and the more long term businesses of ranches and dairies made use of the forgiving climate and forgiving terrain of the Sierra foothills.
We almost never dine at the hotel, which proved to be an unfair bias, as the dinner we enjoyed at the inn was everything we could have asked for and won’t hesitate for a minute to enjoy another meal there as soon as we can make our way back to the foothills.
Susie and I have now learned that as a practical matter, a trip to the Eastern Sierra from the coast is better made in two days over and two days back. So I guess we’ll just have to keep coming back to another stay in Murphys… whether we’re actually going the eastside or not.
