Sacramento & Davis day

Last Saturday, July 16th, Randy was signed up to run a half marathon in Davis (see his blog for the details on his race). The race was at 7 p.m. so we left first thing Saturday morning and drove to Sacramento. We figured we would take the kids to see the Capitol building, maybe take a tour. But getting off the freeway, we were rerouted because of construction, taking us right past Sutter's Fort. While looking up things to do in Sacramento with kids, Sutter's Fort had been highlighted on some websites. And since Audrey has just finished studying California history (California Indians, the missions, the Gold Rush, etc.), I thought this would be a fun place to visit. We decided to stop at the Fort first, then head to the Capitol. I am so glad we did! We ended up spending four hours there. First we went to the National Indian Museum (on the same grounds), then ate our picnic lunch on the shaded lawn, then explored the fort! Since our visit happened to be the third Saturday of the month, it was a "Hands-On History" day at the Fort. The kids were each given a paper "treasure hunt" when they entered, and if they found all the pictured items, they could turn it in at the dining hall for 5 Sutter bucks. They could also earn Sutter bucks by sitting and listening to stories and asking good questions of the docents. The Sutter bucks could then be used to trade for little toys (ones popular from the mid-1800s) or coloring books of the Fort (also found in the dining hall). I'll let the pictures do the rest of the explaining.

























After a quick look around the Capitol building (unfortunately, being a Saturday, we couldn't see inside the Senate or House meeting rooms), we drove the short 15 minutes to the town of Davis. We ate an early, light dinner at Woodstock's Pizza then headed over to check in for the races. Audrey ran in the 1 mile kid run. Randy ran the half-marathon (which was actually, due to some insufficient course routings, .9 miles shy of a true half). Fortunately, Randy wasn't needing to qualify for anything through this race. And because of the mix-up, all participants in the half will get a significant discount on the race next year. Both Randy and Audrey ran fantastic races, and the weather couldn't have been better...a light breeze and 70 degrees!