Sacramento

Our Christmas present to each other this year was a trip to Sacramento to see a play.  We arrived late afternoon and had a little time to wander around the city center before our play.  I thought it might be a little warmer in Sacramento than Reno, but the wind made 50 degrees feel cold. We had time to tour the California State Capitol.  It was interesting.

And I learned there that this lovely domed building in Auburn, that I always thought was an Capitol building is really just the Auburn Courthouse and was never the capitol! Sorry kids, I was wrong.

We toured the inside of the capitol and saw pictures of California history including the portraits of past governors. Most interesting was the first portrait of Jerry Brown, also known as Governor Moonbeam I believe.

The capitol has a beautiful rotunda

and beautiful grounds you can stroll around.  Sometimes it is just too hot in Sacramento to want to stroll the grounds, but even though it was a little cool it was a nice walk.  Calvin is standing in front of a cork tree here and the bark actually feels like cork.

I'm just wandering around taking pictures.

On our way back to the hotel we found the Governor's mansion which has been restored to the period of Governor Leland Stanford. The last tour of the day was just departing, so we jumped in and got a tour, but no photographs are allowed inside.

I like having a few hours to explore someplace that I have visited many times and discover something new.