Exploration: California's Capital

Gavin and I decided that Thursday's are Adventure Days. We've lived in California (as a family) for 4 1/2 months now and haven't really explored much further than Folsom. Sure, we've been to Roseville, but that's just a Southcenter/Bell Square combo and not really unique, and Gavin drove to the gold rush town of Placerville almost everyday for work, but I don't think that counts either.

So we made a California "to-do" list of things we really want to see and explore. First up: Sacramento.

Being only a 20-30 minute drive for us means we should have been to Sacramento numerous times before last Thursday. It's RIGHT there. But other than driving through it to get to/from the airport every few weeks, we haven't visited. Gavin came up with the idea Wednesday, since two items on our list were the capital building and Old Sacramento. Easy to cross those off in one day (thought we decided going back sans Eleanor would be nice).

First stop was the capital building, and a beautiful building it was. From afar it looks like a run-of-the-mill  capital building: white stone, pillars, and a dome. Then you get close and the intricate carvings and statues come to life and the beauty of the surrounding garden enchants. One does have to look past the brown, dying grass and the dry "trout pond", but California is in the middle of a terrible drought and its good to see the capital doing its part to conserve.We walked around the building and were going to go in, but with the baby in her stroller the idea of metal detectors and security checks had us turning around. The garden's shade gave us the reprieve from the sun we were looking for, so we toured the different memorials and saw a diversity of plant specimens. Ive since fallen in love with magnolia trees and the giant white blooms they carry. I also saw my first orange tree which was pretty cool; I joked with Gavin that I thought oranges came from the grocery store. I've seen apple trees but the orange trees are a different kind of beauty.

After an hour or so we wondered over to Old Sacramento for a quick look around and sustenance for the growing rumble in our stomachs. We were rewarded with a little self tour of the historic gold rush era buildings and cobblestone streets. It was still very touristy, like the Seattle waterfront, with souvenir shops, candy stores, and carriage rides; the history of old town was preserved beautifully though. Once the heat finally beat us, we found a small pizza parlor to fill us up and then made our way home to our day with some relaxing family time.