Old Sacramento
Drawbridge across the Sacramento River In Freeport
After breakfast at Alma’s River Cafe, we drove to Sacramento. The fog had lifted slightly. At least we could see to the other side of the river. It looks like the sun will win through and we will have a nice day.
We took Highway 160 all the way into Sacramento and the road ran alongside the river for most of the journey. It was a very scenic drive along the levee with water on one side and pear orchards and vineyards on the other. At one point we passed a large heard of goats and they were all pressed up against the fence.
At Courtland, Tom pulled off the road. He had seen the courthouse and wanted to take another look. It seemed a huge building for such a small place. Tom thought it might have originally been a Carnegie library but it’s looking pretty neglected now. I checked online when I got home and could find only minimal information about Courtland and none at all about the courthouse. We drove a little further into Courtland but there was no main street and only a few houses. We also stopped at Freeport. Tom wanted to investigate the abandoned railroad track but there was not too much to see at all apart from a bridge over the old tracks.
Soon after Freeport we left the river. Just after driving under I5 there was a huge water tower – or at least we took it to be one but it looked more like a flying saucer on legs – which had a ‘Welcome to Sacremento City of Trees’ emblazoned upon it. Soon after that the road was lined with huge trees with their leaves beginning to change color and fall. It was a pretty sight.
Our destination was ‘Old Sac’, which is in the historic downtown of the city. We were looking for First Street and the History Museum. There is an hour long walking tour which leaves
Old Wells Fargo Stagecoach. Must have been a bumpy, dusty ride.
the museum at 11 am if only we could find First Street. We entered Old Sac on a cobbled road. The buildings were all gold rush era and very quaint. We parked on Front Street at a parking meter. The charges were a bit steep at 25c for 12 minutes and the limit was two hours. I put in $2.50 for two hours of parking and we set off to find First Street. We walked up one block and found ourselves on Second Street, so where on earth was First Street? Fortunately I spotted the Visitors Center so we popped in in there to ask. While I was waiting to speak to the assistant, I got into conversation with another lady. She was here for a week from Kentucky and staying in a Elder Hostel and was looking for things to do in Sacramento. I told her about the walking tour and she was interested. Maybe we will meet up again later. The assistant answered my query – Front Street is First Street! He gave me a map of Old Sacramento and marked where the History Museum was.
We had half an hour to spare so took the opportunity to look round the Wells Fargo exhibition in the Visitors Center. One exhibit was an original stage coach. I tried to imagine what it would be like to travel across country in one. Not only did the seats look uncomfortable and cramped and there were no springs, but I wondered what ladies did when they wanted to go to the bathroom. The clothes they wore, apart from being extremely tight and cumbersome, would have made the procedure difficult. Part of the exhibition was on the Pony Express. We learnt that the riders worked 72 hour shifts, only stopping to change horses every 12 miles and the company preferred to hire orphans. More surprising though was that the whole operation only ran for 18 months before the telegraph put them out of business.
On our way to the History Museum we stopped off to buy some salt water taffy and a bottle of water. Tom found some wax lips. I thought they were candy but Tom explained they were just for fun but I couldn’t see the purpose of them at all. Guess you have to be a kid.
At the History Museum I went inside to inquire about the walking tour and to pay. I was told the tickets were $7 each but no money would be taken yet as the guide had not turned up. This news did not go down too well with us. Afterall we were likely to run out of money on the parking meter before the tour ended if it didn’t leave more or less on time. We decided to wait a little longer just in case the guide did turn up. We sat outside in the shade and met up with the lady I had spoken to in the Visitors Center. We seemed to be the only three waiting. After waiting ten minutes we decided to abandon the idea.
We went instead to the Railroad Museum which was almost next door. The entrance fee was $9 each with no discounts for seniors. Now trains do not particularly appeal to me but the exhibits here were well displayed and it was possible to go inside a lot of them. The first I ventured inside was the 4294 which was enormous, positively a behemoth. The cab was ahead of the engine and was specifically designed that way so that fumes from the smokestack did not asphyxiate the driver or the fireman when traveling through the many tunnels in mountainous areas.
Margaret getting a lesson in mail sorting at the Sacramento Railroad Museum
The next and most interesting to me was the Great Northern Railway Post Office Car No. 42. This particular train traveled the Chicago to Seattle route. A docent took a lot of time to explain everything to me, pointing out the pigeon holes and describing how the whole operation worked. There would have been twelve people working to sort the mail, doing a range of duties. It was high paid work but it needed to be because it involved being very fast and efficient plus remembering every stop along their section. The trickiest job is being the mail catcher because he had to throw the mail bags out at many places along the line, sometimes in the coldest of weather, while, at the same time, catching the mail with an ingenious contraption. All the while the train is traveling at least 50 miles an hour. It must have been extremely hard work.
I wondered around the rest of the museum looking at various information boards scattered around and peered into the windows of the luxurious Clegg carriage. Talk about how the other half lived. There was an plush sitting room, complete with a fireplace; an office; a dining room; a kitchen and, right at the end, the servants quarters. The latter were extremely cramped and the toilet was open and exposed.
I looked at my watch and saw that the parking meter would run out in ten minutes. I left Tom still absorbed in the exhibits to return to the car and feed the meter. There was still seven minutes to go before the time expired so I decided to wait it out. There was a convenient seat nearby so took a rest and did a bit of writing. When I glanced up there was a meter maid standing in front of the car and the excess flag was up. Fortunately she had not started to write out the ticket and she said it was OK to feed the meter. I had the quarters ready in my hand but as I feed them into the meter, I dropped one and it rolled away and then disappeared through a crack in the boardwalk. Both the meter maid and I laughed at the absurdity of it.
The meter maid struck up a conversation with me to say she liked my accent and asked where I came from. When I told I came from England she asked which part. She had never heard of Guildford but she went on to tell me of where her ancestors came from. It is always fascinating having these conversations.
Not fifteen minutes later I was back in the Railroad Museum and chatting with another person about where I came from. Tom and I had gone upstairs to look at the model railways. While Tom wandered around and relived his childhood, I sat on a bench in front of the moving display. This time it was a docent who sat down beside me and asked if I was doing my homework. At my age, he must have been joking. I happened to be once again writing in my journal. He told me his wife came from Scotland and neither of them had visited there since 1965. I told him it was about time he went back again.
When we walked back outside the museum the heat hit us. We decided to take a walk round and look at a few of the shops but we were very disappointed. The outside of the shops were authentic and it was fun to walk on the covered boardwalk but most of the shops were just tourist traps selling T-shirts, forgettable souvenirs, body piercings and fast food restaurants. Several people tried to thrust adverts into our hands as we passed. Beside all of this, the place was getting crowded. It was time to move on.
Back in the car we then had to find our way to Highway 160. Tom’s keen sense of direction soon had us heading the right way. We passed the State Capital
Some very big equipment at the Sacramento Train Museum
on our left. Just past there we saw a large gathering of people in a small park. There were flag carriers and I saw somebody in uniform holding a big drum. Then we noticed a lot of people in uniform, mostly policemen. Along the sides of the road were parked hordes of police and fire department cars and trucks. Later on we drove through a very nice area with huge shade trees. In front of most of the houses on the roadway were huge mounds of leaves. One of the drawbacks of having these trees outside your house at this time of year but adequate payment I’m sure for the beauty of the trees themselves.
We were back in Locke by 2.30 and had a quick snack. We stopped to buy rolls on the way home and made sandwiches with the steak left over from last night. Then we took another walk around Locke. Today it is much busier than yesterday. As it is the weekend most of the shops were open. There are no high end shops like Carmel. Locke does not pretend to be something it is not. Most shops are very rickety with dark interiors. The busiest place was the bar called Al’s Place or ‘Al the Wops’. Outside were a good dozen flashy Harley Davidson motorcycles. Some of them were really smart. Tom pointed one out where the passenger seat not only had a padded back and armrests but also speakers on each side of the seat. Positively comfortable I’m sure.
In the evening we drove into Isleton in search of somewhere to eat dinner. Isleton is larger than Walnut Grove or Locke and more seemed to be going on. There were even a couple of casinos.
We found a Mexican restaurant and a Chinese restaurant but picked Isleton Joe’s because they serve crawdads. Apparently you must have crawdads if you go to Isleton. Crawdads, by the way, are called crayfish in England and are very small fresh water lobster. As I didn’t know whether I would like them, I did not want to order them on their own but chose to have them with pasta and alfredo sauce. Tom had the crawdads with pasta and pesto sauce. To begin with there was a choice of soup or salad Tom chose the salad and I went for the split pea soup. When I came to sample the soup though it was very salty so only had a couple of mouthfuls. Our server was excellent and changed it for the clam chowder, which was much better. The pasta and crawdads was very good but there was so much of it. We both had as much as we could eat but hadn’t made much of a dent in the amount on our plates.
Then it was home for another early night. Next door appeared to be having a party as there was loud music playing but we could hardly hear it inside the cottage and it did not stop us getting another good night’s sleep.
November 03 2009 | Special Places | No Comments »
