A Capital Adventure - The Finale

NOTE: If you need to catch up before reading the final report of this trip, use the following links:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Today, we’ll drive over to the capital and visit Old Sacramento. We’re staying seven miles east in Rancho Cordova. It’s a short drive to downtown then…

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Crunch time.  Getting close to Old Sacramento, the traffic comes to a stand still. I can’t believe the place is this popular, even on a Sunday, that traffic is backed up for a mile. We bail out, head to the next bridge north, cross the Sacramento River, and go over into West Sacramento.

Next to Raley Field, we see a large, mostly empty parking lot. There are no signs saying “No Parking” or any other restrictions and about 20 cars are already parked there. It’s just a very short walk across the Tower Bridge to Old Sacramento, so we park and head on our way.

Once on the other side of the bridge, we find the reason for all the traffic.  It’s time for the Sacramento Music Festival, a three-day blowout of non-stop music in and around Old Sacramento.

This isn’t what we’d planned for, we just thought we’d spend some time here, having a few samples at Candy Heaven, and maybe grabbing a meal.

The streets are crowded with festival goers, the shops packed wall to wall, and music coming from here and there.

We do get into Candy Heaven, where you can sample til you’re sick, get some candy and walk around the festival.

There’s a really good high school jazz band playing on the dock next to the old steamboat. An old acquaintance, Bob Ringwald (he’s the dad of Molly), is playing across the street in the Marriott but the showtime doesn’t mesh with our schedule.

We find La Terraza has an elevator so we head up to the balcony for drinks.

The restaurant reserves two of its best tables for handicapped customers so we got a great table outside with a wonderful view.

Some folklorio dancers came up to entertain as we drank our margaritas and ate our nachos.

Quite an entertaining afternoon.

After lunch, we headed back out to Folsom, this time for the town, not the prison.

It’s an old town with many old Western shops along the boardwalks. Usually, this would spell trouble for the wheelchair but Folsom has ramped everything. It’s very accessible now.

In the plaza is an old train turntable, next to a historical museum in a recreated village.

Watching the blacksmith, imagining the old steam locomotives, and browsing the antiques are fun, as is the short hike we took at the adjacent lake.

Dinner would be here at the Fat Rabbit Pub. It’s a pretty authentic English pub, down to the hand-drawn taps of English bitters.

Over a dinner of fish and chips and chicken pot pie, we sip sour ales and English bitters while relaxing after a long day.

It’s a trip that started on the down side, with bloody sheets and a lonely truck stop motel, but turned into a fun, music filled weekend full of wine, history, and old West spirits.

After commiserating over what was and what could have been, we settle in for the night to rest up for the long drive home tomorrow.

Darryl

Copyright 2013 – Darryl Musick

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