Sacramento

We had our first trip to Sacramento this Saturday – decided to do something out of the city for a day and knew this was a doable return drive so despite the heat I knew would be out there we packed our jandals (flip flops) and went to collect the Zipcar from the building next door. Except it wasn’t there! Normally they phone if the car is going to be returned late and offer an alternative but it just wasn’t there. I started walking all the floors of the car park while The Mister phoned the Zipcar people. They had no idea where it was. No GPS it seems! Perhaps that’s some kind of privacy violation but would’ve been very handy in this case. They couldn’t rouse the previous users by phone either. They found us another car available for the day a couple blocks away – it was orange (yaaaay!) but a Mini, not so great for driving in 35 degree heat on the freeway. However, we were underway only half an hour after we planned.

So, Sacramento was about 2 hours drive away, freeway through sprawling Bay towns and cities, over a couple of bridges and a tiny bit of country side. We did what we planned – just a stroll around old town and a trip to the coffee shop someone from work recommended.

  • Their water tasted funny – like it had silt in it
  • The city seemed a bit run down, reminded me of Kawerau or some other small residential town in NZ with wrought iron signs. It’s the State capital with a Capitol building and everything which looked very gleaming and important but the city itself was a bit lazy. Perhaps it was the heat.

Day trip to Sacramento

  • There was practically no-one in the park and gardens surrounding the Capitol – too hot I think. Other parks in other cities, people are reading on park benches or picnicking.

Day trip to Sacramento

  • There were orange tress with oranges on them dotted all around the place!

Day trip to Sacramento

  • It was DAMN hot, 35 degrees C.
  • The Macy’s smelled funny and carpet tiles were lifting in places, like a run down old Farmers store in NZ – we stopped in for a bathroom break.
  • The old town seemed almost fake for the tourists, I’m sure it wasn’t, but there were no dates on anything, just lots of candy and trinket stores.

Day trip to Sacramento

Day trip to Sacramento

Day trip to Sacramento

  • A steam train rattled through the old town by the river – that was quite exciting, the tracks were right there on the riverside path, no barriers, could’ve touched the train as is rattled passed.

Day trip to Sacramento

  • There was a big yellow bridge!

Day trip to Sacramento

Other photos on Flickr here, tagged ‘Sacramento’.

(By the way I tweeted Zipcar the following week and asked what had happened to the Audi we’d booked because we noticed for the next 2 days walking passed that building that it wasn’t parked in its usual space – I only had a ‘hope you enjoyed your ride in the orange Mini’ tweet, no explanation.)