If you haven't heard, the Tahoe basin is being affected by all the wildfires burning around it. With an unhealthy air quality index of 185, we decided to head south to Temecula where the only thing burning is the temperature (96° when we arrived in the early evening).

While we didn't get a view, we did get a history lesson about Mono Diggins. The plaque reads: 

About 1 mile N. E. of here lies Mono Diggins, the first extensive placer mining excitement east of the Sierra. Cord Norst is generally credited with being the discoverer on July 4, 1859. A town, Monoville, boasted a transient population of 500-1,000. A post office established December 12, 1859, was closed by April 2, 1862, as the prospectors moved on to Aurora.

One of the most ambitious hydraulic water projects of the time was the transportation of water from Virginia Creek to the Diggins by open ditches known as "the Mono Ditch." The remains of the system may be seen by looking easterly from the highway summit or northerly from the bottom of the grade.