Pollock Pines, Pollock Pines, CA

Pollock Pines is the Highway 50 town in El Dorado County where the oak foothills past Placerville give way to tall Sierra timber, and the road keeps climbing east toward Lake Tahoe. Lumber built the place, and its name comes from Hiram Pollock, a sawmill man who ended up selling building lots. Day to day, life runs along the highway. One busy stretch holds the restaurants, the grocery store and the library, and a block or two off it the streets go quiet. Houses are mostly single-family homes on wooded lots, with cedars and pines close enough to count as part of the yard. When people want to be outside, Forebay Reservoir and Pollock Pines Recreation Park are on the north side of town. Jenkinson Lake at Sly Park is a short drive south, and a trail loops the shoreline for roughly nine miles. The El Dorado Irrigation District owns the lake and shares the running of the recreation area with the Bureau of Reclamation. Eating out in Pollock Pines is easier than you would guess for a mountain town. C and T's is the breakfast crowd's stop, with Spanish omelets and biscuits and gravy. Southfork 1848 Eatery and Bakeshop turns out Hangtown fry burritos. Sportsman's Hall, a stagecoach stop from the gold rush decades, serves prime rib sandwiches and chicken fried steak, and 50 Grand handles steak nights. For coffee before the commute there is a Starbucks on the strip. Errands stay close to home. Safeway and the El Dorado County Library are both in town, so a weekly shop rarely means leaving the trees. Larger stores mean heading down the hill to Placerville, and Sacramento is a long drive west on the same highway. Snow is part of the deal. Some winters bring a dusting and others bury driveways, and a storm can turn Highway 50 into the whole story of your commute. Keep chains in the trunk from fall onward. Most mornings, off the highway, the loudest sound is wind moving through the treetops.