Traveling the USA

After a long day of sitting in garages yesterday, we decided to stick around Sacramento for another day and do some sightseeing. There’s a section of Sacramento called ‘Old Sacramento’ that is restored buildings where the original settlement was located. There’s also several museums. We visit the Railroad Museum first. It’s reportedly the best railroad museum in the country and I’d have to agree that it is very nicely done. We take their 45-minute tour, which is led by a volunteer who seems to know everything about trains.

Then watch their 20-minutes introductory movie—it was worthless. The film made sure to mention every single possible minority that had anything to do with California (except white males of European ancestry) and said very little about train history. Jere and I both had the same opinion of the movie. BUT the rest of the museum is staffed by many volunteers who eagerly explain their exhibit and that’s what makes this museum enjoyable and educational. My favorite exhibit was their mail car, where they sorted the mail between Chicago and Oregon.

Joe enjoyed their large exhibit of toy trains.

We then grab some pizza, walk around a little, and then look at the Wells Fargo exhibits. We wanted to look at the California exhibits at the visitors’ center, but at 3:00 it was still closed for lunch. I heard someone complain to the shop next to the visitors center, and the shopkeeper told them that they sometimes close for 3 hours for lunch. So we went over to the Discovery Museum and looked at their exhibits, especially their gold mining exhibits since the 1849 gold rush started close to here when gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill in 1848.

We walk along the river and then call it a day.

After dinner Joe and I relax by the lake watching birds….well, I was watching….Joe was throwing stones in the lake 