San Francisco!

Arrived in San Francisco yesterday (Friday) just after noon.  I haven't posted for some time, so will say a little, and include photos, of our visit to Sacramento.  At left is the California State capital from a distance.  

    Here is the capital as we neared it.  The day we arrived in Sacramento we got to the capital a little late and though we looked around a little, there was a guided tour and we decided to do it a later day.

This is the Golden Bridge just west of the capital on West Capital Street.  We were told, when on the the Sacramento River Boat Cruise later, that the bridge cost a half million dollars when built in the 1930's.  It is a vertical lift bridge.  It repainted to the gold color in 2002 and cost of one million dollars was quoted for that repainting.

 
This photo, taken from a web site, shows the bridge raised for river traffic.

We went down to Old Sacramento, just west of the capital a few blocks, and on the east side of the Sacramento River and spent time going through the stores, museums, etc.

At right are three views of the Pony Express Statue
which is at the edge of Old Sacramento.

  Spent couple hours in the California State Railroad Museum 

I have put an album up on Touring Sacramento , one of my Picasa Albums which include more photos than on this blog today.

 We took an hour boat cruise on the Sacramento River, going about 7 miles up river and a mile down river from where we started.   At right -- I am relaxing viewing the countryside.  We had a very small crown on our particular trip.  The greeter to the boat mentioned that the day before they had had a whole boat full of school kids.  Glad we missed that one!

Going by the Sacramento Water Department water intake off the river.

They closed off a block of the 4-lane boulevard not too far from our trailer for an afternoon farmers market.  Phyllis got some fresh stuff.

After driving some 15 miles or so to the northeast and looking around one evening we stopped at a Japanese Sushi bar.  Didn't have the sushi, but got really big helpings of supper.  We ate another meal off them the next afternoon at the trailer and still have one more helping to eat.  Traveling with with your own refrigerator has its advantages.

We went on a guided tour of the capital Friday morning.  The guide here is standing by bronze bear donated by Arnold Schwarzenegger when he was Governor.  Asked if the bear had a name, she reluctantly said "Yes, Bacteria Bear" because all the school kids run their hands all over it.  If you read the article at Governor donates bronze bear you will see that the bear originally did not have any shiny bronze on it.

 We saw both chambers of the legislature.  California remains "in session" year around though they are not usually in session on Fridays.

We are located in a very cramped RV Park (though we have usual amount of space inside our trailer) just a few miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge.  I will write another blog on the San Francisco area.

Lynn