{"id":2048,"date":"2022-02-27T18:05:13","date_gmt":"2022-02-27T18:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=2048"},"modified":"2022-02-27T18:34:43","modified_gmt":"2022-02-27T18:34:43","slug":"sacramento","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=2048","title":{"rendered":"Sacramento"},"content":{"rendered":"

California is a state with many thrilling cities: San Francisco\u2019s hills, San Diego\u2019s sailing and Hollywood!\u00a0 Alas, Sacramento is not thrilling unless you\u2019re a politician, Sacramento being California\u2019s capital.\u00a0 But if you come for a visit without overwhelming expectations, the city has much to offer.<\/p>\n

For one thing, it is ideally suited as a base for wine tasting.\u00a0 It\u2019s pretty much in the middle of Amador County, Lodi and Napa Valley.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t mind driving a bit, they\u2019re each about an hour away from downtown Sacramento.\u00a0 Because of work requirements we had the opportunity to live there for several months.\u00a0 It gave us the chance to see the city as a bit of a throwback to the California of yesteryear.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Old Town Sacramento.\u00a0 Photo courtesy of CBS Sacramento.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Old Town section is a very deliberate recollection of those times.\u00a0 It\u2019s a state historic park, where they have carefully preserved commercial buildings from the mid-19th<\/sup> century.\u00a0 That date is important because of the great Gold Rush of 1849 that turned Sacramento from a sleepy Spanish mission town to a bustling metropolis.\u00a0 Today, Old Town is a bit (well, more than a bit) touristy, but the buildings are real and you can try to imagine what it must have been like when the miners came into town.<\/p>\n

Sacramento is located at the confluence of the Sacramento and American Rivers. It has badly flooded many times.\u00a0 It seems that California either has a drought or way too much rain.\u00a0 If you hit a rainy period, you can walk along Old Town\u2019s riverfront and see the Sacramento threaten to spill over its banks.\u00a0 It happened often enough that the city leaders raised up the Old Town section in its entirety, so you probably won\u2019t have water lapping at your ankles (or higher) when you\u2019re there.<\/p>\n

One real attraction there is the Railroad Museum, with several old steam engines to gawk at.\u00a0 You can event take a ride on an old train, up the Sacramento River.<\/p>\n

The Crocker Art Museum is the oldest museum west of the Mississippi River, founded in 1885.\u00a0 It has a rather nice permanent collection, many paintings from artists in the bay area and often hosts interesting exhibitions.\u00a0 For a tourist, it\u2019s good to know that you can easily take in the whole museum in an afternoon.<\/p>\n

Sacramento is in an interesting place for eating out.\u00a0 It is at the north end of California\u2019s Central Valley, known as America\u2019s Salad Bowl.\u00a0 Thus there are many restaurants that feature \u201cfarm to fork\u201d dining.\u00a0 And if you have a bite or a drink near the Capitol, you\u2019re very likely to be able to listen in as some politicos talk over the affairs of the day.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The crows come in at sunset.<\/em><\/p>\n

We loved a particularly unique Sacramento experience.\u00a0 Right at sundown every day, thousands of crows fly in from the fields surrounding the city.\u00a0 They have predators outside the city but a lot less in town, so they congregate in the area around the Cathedral at 12th<\/sup> Street and K, not far from the Capitol.\u00a0 For about five minutes each evening, a thick cloud of birds, cawing like mad, settle in on the roofs, trees and lampposts.\u00a0 Then they shut up and go to sleep.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

California is a state with many thrilling cities: San Francisco\u2019s hills, San Diego\u2019s sailing and Hollywood!\u00a0 Alas, Sacramento is not thrilling unless you\u2019re a politician, Sacramento being California\u2019s capital.\u00a0 But if you come for a visit without overwhelming expectations, the city has much to offer. For one thing, it is ideally suited as a base … Continue reading Sacramento<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2048"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2048"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2048\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2053,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2048\/revisions\/2053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}