2S2G - Stockton/Sacramento/Portland - Day 5, Tues., June 17

Where do I start? Today was long, but interesting, starting with a breakfast of Aunt Genie's homemade banana bread and cantaloupe.

Aunt Genie went out of her way to buy excellent wheat bread, sliced turkey breast, and cheese for us to make sandwiches to take with us. Add some mayo and Jack Daniel's Mustard and we had a regular deli sandwich.

Sufficiently fortified, we were ready to cope with rush hour traffic between Stockton and Sacramento. Half-way to Sacramento we ran into the worst part of the traffic. Upon entering downtown Sacramento, we sailed on to our hotel exit where we started our 6K (3.7 mi.) Volksmarch.

The beginning of our walk was along a very busy road. At one point the sidewalk was growing 3' tall weeds forcing us to walk in the bike path. Ahead of us, cars coming around the curve toward us were cutting the corner through the bike path lane. Yikes! We waited until we didn't see any traffic coming and quickly walked around the corner.

The walk then took us up onto a viaduct over some railroad tracks with a very narrow sidewalk. Not an auspicous start to our walk.

Once we exited the viaduct at the Amtrak Station in downtown, the walk became more interesting. We saw whimsical sculptures and thoughtful quotes, the Governor's Mansion, The Kay (K St. Mall), and Old Town "Sac."

Whimsical pioneer wagon and ox.

Interesting quotes in the plaza with the sculptures.

Thought-provoking quotes

California Governor's Mansion

Governor's Mansion

Sacramento Memorial Auditorium

Below are "The Blue Trees," a temporary public artwork. Konstantin Dimopolous takes a real urban landscape and alters it..."changes it for a brief period of time so that it becomes something unfamiliar, a strange environment."

The Blue Trees

Artsy fountain

K St. Mall - "The Kay"

California's state capital in Sacramento

Sacramento is Tree City. Portland, Oregon is the the City of Roses? What nickname does your city have?

Artwork along a fence in downtown.

Mural of The City of Trees.

A Muse, perhaps?

Metamorphosis?

Old Town Sacramento

Susan in Old Town Sac

Very well restored Old Town Sacramento

The western terminus of The Pony Express route: Sacramento

Old Sacramento was founded in 1848 by John Sutter, Jr. as an outgrowth of Sutter's Fort, established by his father, Captain John A. Sutter in 1839. As the state capital since 1854, it was a major distribution point during the Gold Rush, a commercial and agricultural center, and terminus for wagon train, stagecoach, riverboat, telegraph, Pony Express, and the first transcontinental railroad.

Also in Old Town Sac are the Old Sacramento State Historic Park, California State Railroad Museum, California State Military Museum, Sacramento History Museum, Wells Fargo History Museum and the Old Sacramento Interpretive Center. We DID NOT have time to see all that.

We did view the Theodore Dehone Judah monument. Who is Theodore Judah? I had no idea. So it was time for some learnin'. According to Wikipedia, Theodore Judah was an American railroad and civil engineer who was a central figure in the original promotion, establishment and design of the first transcontinental railroad. He found investors for what became the Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR). As chief engineer he performed much of the land survey work to determine the best route for the railroad over the Sierra Nevada mountains.

Theodore Dehone Judah

After walking around Old Town "Sac," our Volksmarch directions had us walk on a path along the Sacramento River.

Sacramento River

West Sacramento River Walk water tower.

After the walk we bade farewell to Sacramento as it disappeared in the rear-view mirror. Next stop was a rest area near Redding where we are our sandwiches with great relish (no not pickle relish).

Mt. Shasta was visible for many, many miles today. We watched it grow larger and larger as we headed north. The rest area at Weed was a welcome stop where we saw the north side of Mt. Shasta, and information about the mysterious stone circles in the area.

Mt. Shasta with cloud cap.

Enlarge to read.

For dinner, we went to K & R Drive In in Rice Hill, Oregon. It has been in business for 35 years and our family has eaten there (when we're in the area) for over 20 years. Good place for a burger, tater tots and Umpqua Ice Cream! Nom nom!

It was getting late when we made to Salem, Oregon, so we gave up on the Salem Capital Volksmarch. Instead, we opted to do the Silver Falls State Park Volksmarch on Wednesday.

We made it to Mom's house about 8:30 p.m., chatted for a bit, I did three loads of laundry, then got some sleep to be fresh for a long day tomorrow.

Travel Bug out.