Sacramento

This is the bit where the female of the species panders to the wishes of the other half as he satisfies his long held dream to visit the route of the Western Pacific Railroad across Northern California. Strange as it is she is also looking forward to this bit having been in the room when Tony’s videos and DVD’s have been playing. She is looking forward to seeing if those gorges are that deep and the hills are really that high.

We picked up the car, but it was not the expected model, we were told it was the equivalent! Read the small print! We do not recommend anyone to buy a Hyundai Accent, especially the base model; it is a very small car, especially for us two! It did not have central locking and only has a meagre 10 gallon (American gallons at that!) tank, so the petrol disappears fast! It was described as a compact, we did not want a barge but compact does not mean small or compact, it means underpowered and crap.

The drive from San Francisco was a bit hairy as it was the first time Tony had driven a left hand drive and we were on the freeway almost immediately after leaving the car pick up point. It is not helped that you are injected via some very tight bends into the fast lane of the Bay Bridge. The speed limit may be 65mph, but we had to go faster than that to keep up with the traffic and not cause an obstruction. Turning off the air conditioning produced a remarkable improvement in performance!

We later realised that this part of the route was originally an interurban or tram route which explained the tight bends and the fact we were deposited on to the Bay Bridge in the left hand i.e. the fast lane.

After sometime we had had enough and turned off and out of the bagatelle board that is the Interstate, to travel on the back road to Sacramento. For a back road the traffic was heavy and signs warned us to travel with full headlights as despite the full sun, visibility was poor in the haze. The Sacramento River delta is a vast open plain with high dikes and is not unlike the Lincolnshire fens but signs advertising Walnuts and Pistachios and soft fruit are rare in the East of England. Arrow straight roads and some big bridges followed by mile upon mile of vineyards and orchards lead you to Lodi. This is an impressive place for the number of flowers and trees within its city limits. We stopped for lunch and looked for various buildings including the Round House Tavern as we want to model it, very interesting building, but we did not wish to eat or drink there!

We travelled on to the Radisson hotel in Sacramento and disturbed the staff. (This was to be the first of several occasions). The Radisson Hotel at Sacramento is not a very inspiring rest stop and evidently most of the staff thinks the same as they were surprised when we checked out on the length of our stay!

The reception staff had not completed any course on the subject and a request for information for vineyard tours produced a series of telephone numbers and no clue as to what was a good bet. A request for laundry bags and for them to be collected from our room involved two departments, but the laundry did do a good job. The hotel itself consisted of a series of serried ranks of motel-like chalets in the mission style, a sort of Californian Butlins. A lack of parking produced a parade of vehicles past the room at odd hours. The weekend found the place full and noisy, next-door was at full volume late at night. Having seen the redneck that was staying in the room we called the front desk to try and shut them up. A phone call to the room produced no response and they called the security man who banged and banged on the door and still nothing. Security then called for permission to use the pass key and he got in to find the inhabitants blotto. We had more noise the following night but we got up early on our last morning and hung the please clean my room notice on the handle.

When we arrived in Sacramento we needed some cash so we tried to find a bank. Do not worry with GBP travellers cheques in the USA it is very hard to find a bank or Foreign Exchange company that will change them! The first thing they ask is ‘Do you have an account with us?’, and when we say no we are travelling in the States from the UK, they tell us they cannot change them.

There were only two places we were successful, the first was in Melbourne at American Express and the second at Bank of America in San Francisco. Everywhere else we had to go through a long rigmarole of having our identity verified, and phone calls to head office to see if they would change them. One bank even offered to give us a straight swap of pounds to dollars, until we pointed out that there were one and a half dollars to the pound! The bank in Sacramento did change a few once we told them that we had been able to do it in San Francisco – but it is very wearing on the nerves!

Having got some cash we then tried to find the local shopping Mall, but missed the turn, eventually we found ourselves at a Wal-Mart, so we were able to get some more vital fluids and nibbles and to get the current lot of photos put onto disc. And we saw a very wide lady, one of many that we saw. Yes we know it is pots and kettles, but we are not that bad!

Then as we were nearby we drove to Bruce’s Train Store, using the TomTom to guide us as we had still not found a map of Sacramento (eventually and grudgingly we got a free map from the hotel, after asking where we could find a map!). We spent some time in Bruce’s (and a quite a bit of money) with some knowledgeable staff. What a store and what stock! If they did not have it they could obtain it and will ship it worldwide.

The next day we went into Old Sacramento, a fascinating place on the Sacramento River, but the main point of interest for us was the Railroad Museum. This is a very well laid out museum, which we were told had learnt a lot about Railroad presentation from the British National Railway museum at York. Lots of locos and carriages and trucks, as well as life size dioramas depicting historical moments in American Railroad history, such as the ceremony held at Promontory Summit to complete the last link in the First Transcontinental Railroad across the USA forever known as the Golden Spike, this took place on 10 May 1869! Both Old and new Sacramento are extremely wooded with vast avenues of foliage shading the sidewalks which made the visit very pleasant.

We tried breakfast in the hotel, but were not overly impressed; however we thought we would give dinner a try. We did not repeat this as the meals were very spicy and salty and not at all worth the cost. So after we had done some train spotting the next day we went to have a look around the area for a meal. We had seen a Starbucks (drive thru one!) and Subway – as Maddie says they get everywhere! The guy in Subway was having a conversation and was not keen to serve us so we tried the Pizza place.

We were warmly welcomed, invited to choose a drink – they served a locally brewed lager which was better than we thought possible as we had had some experience of micro breweries and some leave a lot to be desired and an after taste. Tony chose an 8” Pizza and Chris a salad. When the food was delivered we had an 18” Pizza – just a little bit too big! And Chris got a green mountain!

After explaining the mishap, we were given a second beer on the house, money refunded and an 8” Pizza delivered. The young lady serving us told us that her Mum & Dad owned the franchise and that her Dad came from Islington. Well to cut a long story short, Chris’s great grandfather was born in Islington too. It would appear that we have found a cousin as Fred’s mum’s name was Emma Bevis and that was Chris’s grandmother’s name too!

Needless to say we continued to patronise this eatery in the evenings for the rest of the week, except for the Friday when we all went to the brewery/restaurant that makes the beer Fred & Margot serve.

For full details of the pizza place see:
http://expo.extremepizza.com/zgrid/proc/site/sitep.jsp;jsessionid=ajBcGKXKLu-f

During this week we visited Modesto, Lodi, Stockton and Roseville amongst other places looking at scenery and trains, both on the move and parked in railroad yards. Small town America is quaint, different and mostly very pleasant, the oldest buildings are very late Victorian brick built and for the natives that means historic. These older buildings are mostly close to the railway tracks, the new estates sprawl west or east depending on the freeways, and we can see where the song ‘Little boxes’ came from! Like the UK modern designs they do not alter much from new town to new town and from road or rail they do look very similar. The ‘grid’ system adds to this as various eateries vie for corner space adjacent to the petrol station that is part of the chain.

On Sunday morning we went to Roseville and we found yet another good cafe for breakfast – we thought we would try the ham and eggs. Well it came on two plates as the ham was huge – see photo– and there was no room for anything else on the plate! Tony was fascinated by the garden size railway running around in the cafe at picture rail level we also had a good view of the Amtrak station.

Later on we visited Lake Folsom – great fun watching the people putting their boats into the water doing a circuit of the lake and putting them back on the trailer before going home! And some of them really did take that little time on the water.

The striking thing about driving on the Freeways in this area is the Oleander bushes, they cover the roadsides and safety barriers for mile after mile seemingly without gaps and whilst we were there they were in full bloom, all along the median strip, successfully screening on coming vehicles on the opposite side of the road. Off the main roads and far enough away from the interstates the land is very quiet except for agricultural traffic and birdsong.

We did not get to fly the kite in Sacramento, as there was no wind for the whole of the week, only the promised very hot temperatures – we peaked at 100°F!