Sometimes the most unique getaways are off the beaten path a bit, and take a little extra effort to find. Such is the case with the Lazy Z Resort, a place well known by the families who have been visiting the resort since it opened in the 1940’s, but not such a household name for most people.
The Lazy Z is located in the Sierra Nevada foothills – Mark Twain country – where interestingly enough a small town was named after a couple of well-known writers: Twain and Brett Harte. The town is called Twain Harte and it’s a quiet little berg hidden among the trees northeast of historic Sonora. The folks who travel the 108 highway in these parts of Northern California are generally headed for the mountains where the snow piles high each winter and the streams run deep with run-off in the spring.
All of this is only about 140 miles east of San Francisco so, with about a three-hour drive, you change time zones from the 21st Century back to the 19th. Reminders of the old Gold Rush days are everywhere in these parts – from a replica of Mark Twain’s cabin to the historic main streets of towns like Sonora and Angels Camp. Church steeples and Victorian homes are everywhere you look, and one can almost imagine the downtown patrons tying up their horses along the dirt roadway before paying their weekly visit to the Mercantile.
