Sacramento, Day 1

The internet here is particularly unreliable, so I am going to type this all out in Word first and then upload when I get the chance. Hopefully, I get a couple individual posts in; we’ll have to see.

So: Yesterday, Saturday, was Old Sacramento, a very touristy place right next to the California State Train Museum. It’s funny, because Old Sacramento is also a state park, but there are so many tourist trap things to buy, and some things that I would assume are offensive, like the white guy dressed up as the Native American who was making balloon animals for kids waiting in line for the train. I don’t know, maybe that isn’t weird.

The ride to Sacramento was great. Rachel dropped me off at at Santa Clara a little early, so I got to sit in the sun for a while before I got on the train. I ended up getting the entire top of the front car to myself for about 45 minutes, which made me a lot more excited than it probably should have. I went a little crazy taking pictures of the hills that we went by. They came out a lot nicer than I thought they would; due to the internet, they aren’t uploading very well, but we’ll get there!

I then walked to the California State Train Museum, and went to get my tickets for the 45 minute train ride up and down the Sacramento River (that’s for looking that one up for me, Momma). I had reserved tickets for the special El Dorado car, which was an old-timey refurbished first class car from the 1930s ish. Everyone around me had kids and grand kids, and when the conductor asked for my will call name and brought me my ticket, he said, “Only one?!” and then tried not to sound surprised and gave me this big smile. Standing in line for the first class boarding (I felt so cool), a family of six or seven was in front of me: two grandparents, two parents, and two or three kids. I tried to talk to them, but they pretty much ignored me. I wanted to ask what brought them all to the train, and if it was just Old Sacramento or if they were doing the train museum too, and just generally why they were taking the ride. That did not happen. Behind me were two grandparents with either a young daughter and her kid or two grandkids, one oldish. Also ignored. I tried not to take it personally. I figured once I was on the train, I’d be seated with people, and we’d all be forced to talk.

Once we got on the train, I sat in an open-ish car. The family of seven went to the booth in the back and didn’t talk to anyone except themselves. The family of four sat at a four person table. This left me with the eight seats by the windows. I sat facing the other seats, even though it didn’t give me the best view, figuring that would give me the best way to talk to people. A group of about five older women came in and started to sit down. Again, trying not to take it personally, but I’m pretty sure they looked at me, saw they weren’t going to just get their own private space, and so decided to move to the next car.

This is how I ended up sitting with the foreign older couple (who I think were speaking German, but it might have been Dutch) and an older man and his twin four year olds, one boy, one girl. They were adorable. The dad kept telling the two kids to sit on my side of the car so they could see out the window, but they didn’t want to sit next to me (somehow, this hurt less than the adults who didn’t want to share a space). We all kind of smiled at each other, and I figured I wouldn’t get many people to talk to in this ride, so I’d just have to enjoy looking out the window at the river and think of other things to write about.

“I like your bowtie,” the little girl said.

“My what?” I asked.

“Your bowtie,” she said, pointing at my neck. (It’s worth noting that they both had those high pitched little kid voices, and so they were pretty hard to understand until I got used to them. So I had no idea she was saying bowtie).

I looked to the dad for a little assistance, and he said, “That’s not a bowtie, that’s a necklace, sweetie.”

“I like your necklace,” the little girl said.

“Oh, thank you,” I replied. “I like your hat.” She was wearing a baseball cap with flowers on it, and the more I looked, the more I realized it had the San Fransisco logo on it although for baseball or basketball I just wasn’t sure.

“I just realized it’s for the baseball team,” I said, trying anyway. “It’s very cleverly hidden with all those flowers. It’s very pretty.”

And that cemented our friendship forever. The kids broke the ice, saying crazy things and being generally adorable—they were extremely well behaved, and while extremely energetic, they weren’t running all over the place. They just liked to move. This is what made them adorable. As they got more comfortable, they started climbing over to my side of the car. Dad and I talked a little more and more, and eventually, I found out that his grandfather worked for the B & O railroad, and he grew up in a railroad town, and so he just had an interest in trains. He also knew what he was talking about. We discussed Amtrak for a while, and the routes I was taking, and he said he always wanted to ride the California Zephyr down the coast, but he had just never gotten a chance.

“I like your flip flops,” the little girl would say.

“We’re both pink!” she said, pointing at my shirt (technically, it was salmon, but I didn’t really think we needed to split hairs).

“My brother can’t eat nuts. He gets sick,” she told the conductor as he brought us cookies and bottled water (another perk of first class).

The ride ended up being kind of lame. They played information over the loudspeaker as we went—“The transcontinental railroad allowed for all kinds of jobs here in Sacramento,” a guy who sounded suspiciously like Al Borland from Home Improvement would bellow, and then give some relevant facts. I tried to record them all, because it was really hard to write it all down and I was having more fun with the kids and their dad.

When it was time to go, I let a lot of the families get off first because they had carts and were big and I had my backpack and my back hurt so I was trying to delay the amount of time I just stood, waiting for the line to move, with it on my back. The dad and the kids left, but about two seconds later the little girl ran back into the room and said “Bye,” and then gave me the cutest little hip hug. It kind of made my day.

I wandered around Old Sacramento after that, looking for the best possible deal on food. I ended up at a little sports bar in the middle of the “city,” where I just plopped down my bag and got a turkey sandwich and some water. There was a soccer game going (Mexico vs. Japan) so I watched that. There were 3 Japanese-looking businessmen watching the game intently, which is why I think they were Japanese and not Chinese. There was a bit of a raucous bunch at the bar, but I ignored them for the most part.

Until they started playing with the punching machine right behind my table.

Perhaps you know what I’m talking about; I’ve seen this machine in other bars. It’s just a big machine with a punching bag—the little ball kind, that looks like the thing that hangs down your throat—and the point is for drunk people to see how hard they can punch it. I was enjoying my lunch and thinking out the rest of the afternoon when there was this monumental WHAM behind me.

Somehow, I managed not to jump, but it sounded like someone had hit a wall with a chair, or slammed through the door or something. But no, it was just the guys from the bar trying to see who could punch harder. They continued this for about 10 minutes, and were still going when I left. The one kept yelling “This things broke, yo” because it said he wasn’t hitting very hard. Another guy, who I saw from the corner of my eye had blonde dreads and a small beard on just his chin, just getting long enough to curl under, kept ribbing the first guy, and then they ended up in friendly drunken competition.

“Oh man, that was just the top of my fist. Just the top,” one would say when his score wasn’t high.

“Oh man, we’ve got a lefty! Where’s the lefty!” the blonde dreads guy yelled a lot.

“This one’s broke. I’ve gotten 900 before. I’ve done it,” one of them said. The first guy said it was broken a lot, but the blonde might have joined in because the both started going for over 900. When they got it, the entire bar except me and the Japanese guys (and the waitress/barkeep, who was absolutely not amused) cheered for them.

I finished my food and went to the museum. I took the long walk, walking through the rest of Old Sacramento looking for a fedora. I did not find one. The museum started with a quick 20 minute video that looked like it was made in the 70s/80s about how important the transcontinental railroad was. It gave some of the same basic information I’ve been reading about in my history of trains book, but it was so incredibly whitewashed I found myself wanting to scream. One of the “modern” quotes was from a guy who was being interviewed with the sole female engineer-in-charge-of-something-bigger-than-just-one-train at the time “Well, I’ve been working the trains for over fifty years, and I’d have to say one of the most significant changes was the steam to diesel engine…and now look, women can be engineers, too.” It was just the most ridiculous thing I’d heard. Sure, that was a great moment for women, but it had nothing to do with trains and their development in terms of what they guy had been saying. It was just the weirdest non sequitur. They also did this random shot of a Native American looking over a valley where a train was riding through for the beginning, which was the end of the discussion of the Native Americans, and had a quick “Without the Chinese, we never could have done this!” moment. The big four responsible for the transcontinental railroad were represented as cigar chomping white men, with one being stereotypically fat, one being stereotypically quiet and easily shut up, one being a mustache twirling jerk, and one being somewhat idealistic and partly cigar chompy. It was just a very weird movie.

The rest of the museum was alright; I found that it was an overly simplistic way to get a lot of the information I was getting in my book. I did like looking at all of the trains, though, and seeing the different kinds that there were. Still, other than the movie, nothing really stirred my blood, and the kids in the museum were getting to me.

I walked to my hostel, the Sacramento Hostel, and got my room. The Hostel itself is really nice, and I’ll let you know if I get bedbugs or something, but as of now I’m really happy with it. My room, however, is called the Nugget, and boy they weren’t kidding. It is just slightly wider than my door. I don’t need much, sure, but if I was claustrophobic, I would be having problems. I walked to 58 Degrees and Holding, a wine bar, for dinner, and got a really delicious 4 cheese mac and cheese for dinner with a glass of Proseco, because I was all worked up from walking a mile through town and kept thinking I was going to get jumped or get lost. It was pretty horrible; I had a really bad headache once I got to the restaurant, and my hands were shaking really badly. I just really can’t do downtowns, man!  I came home, I got my shower. Two girl scouts were showering as I came in to brush my teeth (did I mention this hostel has shared bathrooms? We have shared bathrooms.) and one thought the other was playing a trick on her. 

“What are you doing?” she yelled out of the shower.

“Nothing,” the other yelled.  

“Then what was the bang?” the first asked.

“There are other people in the hostel,” I said, not rudely I swear, “There’s someone else in here.”

“You don’t sound like a 13-14 year old,” the first said.

“No, it just some ugly old lady,” the second said, and they both giggled. “Not that I know what she looks like.”

“Gee. Thanks,” I said and left. BEDTIME.

This morning, there were two troops of girl scouts in the downstairs. They were loud and obnoxious. I can say obnoxious, because the table of girls next to me all put their heads together and whispered really fast and quickly, and then called over one of the other girls to explain to her that they kicked her out of their room yesterday because it was “quiet time” and she had walked in and was loud. They never told her they hated her. And they laughed when she left because someone had said something funny. And the girl had woken up one of the other girls, “and she hates being woken up.” It was so mean, and it took me back to middle school, and I just wanted to yell at them all that they weren’t cool, and they needed to get over themselves. Of course, that doesn’t ever work, so I just drank my tea quietly.

For the rest of the day, I’m going to a free art museum. They have a pottery exhibit, which I think is cool. And did I mention Free? It’s supposed to start raining this afternoon, which is going to cramp my walking style a bit, but will give me time to read.

Tomorrow, back to San Francisco via Roaring Camp Railroad, another touristy railroad trap. Whee!