Exploring Sacramento, Ca., Monday, April 22. 2013

Our mission today was to explore Sacramento.  Our first stop was at the State Capitol where we took a guided tour.  Our tour guide was very informative and interesting.  We were given some history about the state and the building and then were taken to a legislative chamber.  Unfortunately, we were parked in a one hour parking spot (that is all that we found in this area) and had to leave before the completion of the tour.

The next stop was at Sutter's Fort Historic Park.  Swiss immigrant John Sutter. after getting a 48,000-acre land grant from the Mexican government, established the first Europewan outpost in interior California in 1840.  This outpost served as a refuge and offered supplies for travelers.  When the 1849 gold rush occurred the fort became overrun by the miners and Sutter was cheated out of his property.  We took the self-guided tour going from site to site and hearing a recording about the site.  There were a couple gentlemen in period costumes talking about aspects of the fort.   NOTE:  Our AAA TourBook indicated that this fort was opened Tuesday- Sunday but the sign out front stated "open daily" which today being Monday it was definitely open.

Moving on we went to the area called Old Sacramento.  This 4 block region was the commercial district during the gold rush days.  Today it is a tourist stop with souvenir stores and restaurants.  We did eat lunch at a Mexican restaurant, La Terraza Mexican Restaurant, that had outside seating on a second floor balcony overlooking the streets below.  And then we had to check out some of the stores and an ice cream store for dessert.

The last stop today was at the Blue Diamond Almond Store.  Blue Diamond Almonds is the world's largest precessor of almonds with the almonds being grown in this region.  We shopped and sampledthe almond products and then watched a movie about the growing and processing of almonds.

From 2013-04-22 Blue Diamond

Yesterday and today have been the warmest since we left Anaheim with temperatures in the mid 80's.  Tomorrow we will move to the north and higher altitude which could mean cooler temperatures again.