Twain Harte

December 26, 2005
By: C.Whyte

Twain Harte. What is left to say about a place with such ambience and grace? With hundreds of years of history behind it, including the world's largest piece of gold (mere centimeters larger than DY's latest bathroom domination), more trees than you have ever seen in your life, and multiple I.O.O.F's (also known to the locals as "Ioofz") what is not to like?

But here in lies the problem: how does one get to this majestic place?

Not too many people know the path and even fewer dare travel it, but for those able and willing enough, I am here today to explain the route in the greatest of detail. Think of me as a modern day pirate writing down a treasure map in laments terms to the so called "booty" (or as I like to call it touchas) that is Twain Harte.

Lets start out (for the sake of reference) in sunny Santa Clara (more formally known as SC-1). Leaving from SC1 there is quite the drive to the lower Sierras, probably around three hours, which to the average passenger feels like a lifetime.

First stop is in Dublin, the city of Angels. The junction 580/680 which so elegantly overpasses the lucid (and I'm not joking about this name) "Club Sport" and takes you to a huge pile up of cars until the disappointing not-so-pleasant town of Pleasanton.

What's so hard about driving that route you might ask? The answer is simply that you are so close to the Alamo you can almost TASTE it, but you cannot go there. Not to mention that "Club Sport" laughs at you and the water pumped in the reservoir is a pseudo green color. It stings the heart to see such a disgrace to the ever delicious and Hummer brand h2o. Regardless of the pain, the drive must go on, and the only way to go is towards Lathrop.

Lathrop: population 52.

The town is roughly the size of a dinosaur and chances are smells a little bit worse than one too. Why you ask? It's because of a little thing called a Sugar Refinery. Don't let the delicious sounding name deceive you; this factory produces worse smelling fumes than even those fired out from DY.

A little trick of the trade for you guys to use out on your own: make sure the windows are rolled up when you enter Lathrop, but force out the worst smelling odor you can possibly produce. With the windows rolled up, make mention to the rest of the car: "must be the outside smell of Lathrop," and the rest is history.

As time goes by you begin to forget where you are going until you pass by a sign that says "Escalon." That's right, the town is called Escalon. The founder, Mr. Escalon, decided to name the town after something that he would not forget easily because we all know how easy it is to forget the name of a town that you founded. Mr. Escalon thought he was quite clever, but I am afraid I have to give the award of worst name for a town to Arnold Bolveriac, the man who founded the town formally known today as "Arnold." That's right, in a stroke of sheer genius, the guy named the town after his first name.

The question I have for this Dingis-Kahn is this: how lame do you have to be to name a town after your first name?

What if the rest of the world took this man's lead and all of a sudden there were a bunch of cities out there named "Matt" and "Dave" and "Chris?" All I have to say is that I am glad Wang wasn't the founder of any towns.

One thing Escalon has to offer is a restaurant that no one ever stops at. The name of the place is written on a big yellow sign clearly labeled "Restaurant Lounge." Do I even have to say anything about that?

I know that a lot of you guys are thinking: "hey, maybe there is a name to the place and you were just reading the description of it." No, I'm not reading the description of it. The restaurant is legitimately called "Restaurant Lounge," believe me. Worst name for a restaurant PERIOD!

As you can see this ride is shaping up, but it is far from over. Actually it is about two thirds of the way over.

On my most recent trip up to Twain Harte, I decided to stop for dinner in Escalon. Clearly I did not want anything to do with the "Restaurant Lounge" so I continued through the downtown area. There are only two other restaurants in Escalon: The House of Beef and El Jardin.

The House of Beef speaks for itself, but the real trip was El Jardin: a Mexican restaurant that seemed to have a French sounding name. Pretty weak name if you ask me, but naming restaurants was not this town's strong point.

I must say that the food was pretty decent and the service was grade B (hey, B's a pretty good grade). But enough about that, let's get back to this treasure map writing.

The next major town you hit after driving for 40 minutes through some hills is Jamestown.

Jamestown is a small 49er town where gold panning in the rivers comes only second to watching TV. The town founder, who's name we can all safely assume is Larry, has coincidently never seen a game of football in his life (fun little side note).

After Jamestown comes Sonora, home of the once proudly standing Circle K and the famous Mono Way exit. Every city in the United States is forced to have a road named "Mono Way" regardless of how many ways the street may have. One thing you should know about Mono Way is that it should be avoided at all costs. You see, a long time ago in a galaxy far far away Arnold (yes, the founder of the town and well known Pagan) cast a spell on all Mono Ways after contracting mononuclear virus from fellow swimming and diving coach Marcus Anthony from the University of Southern California. To this day the spell holds strong, terrorizing anyone who stands in its way.

Let's not worry about spell casting, let's worry about playing!

And play you shall once you make it out of Sonora alive and into the heart of the final destination.

The road to Twain Harte was long and rough, but now that you have made it a moment of relief can be taken in the comfort of your own automobile. Part of the Twain Harte beauty is that it is such a lame place; no criminals would even WANT to come up and break into your house.

Even if they did, what would they take? Your fire wood? Get right out of town criminals, Twain Harte that is.