#CIBOS TWAIN HARTE FULL#

At Browns Coffeehouse and Sweets Saloon, we found coffee-available вЂњfor hereвЂќ in ceramic or in a to-go cup-with a lid (did they have these during the Gold Rush?), and paid todayвЂ™s prices with a debit card. Visitors eat ice cream out of disposable containers with plastic spoons and, yes, meander around with their necks bent over their phones, connected to the park Wi-Fi. ItвЂ™s a bit amusing, though, how the time warp only goes so far. At various spots around town, visitors can sip sarsaparilla, dip candles, make soap, watch live theater, pan for gold, see a blacksmith at work, buy old-time candy from a big jar, admire old homes-just like during the Gold Rush days. (You can hear the wooden pins crashing from any point in the dusty-boardwalk town.) The shop attendants and docents dress in period wear-women in long dresses with high collars, men wearing vests and hats, often with their pants stuffed into boot tops.

Tucked into the Tuolumne County foothills about 90 minutes east of Sacramento, it maintains a working blacksmith shop, general store, livery stables, leather merchant, bakery, candy store. This is Columbia State Historic Park, incorporated in 1854 as a Gold Rush boomtown and preserved today as an educational tourist destination.

#CIBOS TWAIN HARTE FULL#

He hauled a wagon full of T-shirt-clad tourists snapping photos with their smartphones. A team of horses clopped by, driven by a guy dressed in 1850s garb. We parked just off Parrotts Ferry Road, seeking coffee, and wandered into a town that couldвЂ™ve been straight out of вЂњLittle House on the Prairie,вЂќ but in the foothills.

It was, as they say, a step back in time.

Cibos twain harte