Sacramento River Cruise and Old Town

Most of us don't do the tourist thing in the area where we live and work. Who has time? We're too busy living and working, and then we do our sightseeing far away from home. That is until we have out-of-town guests, holidays, or birthdays, and the question comes up: What's a fun thing to do in this town? The city I work in and live near is Sacramento, California. I spent several of my adult years here, and only recently discovered Old Sacramento and what it has to offer. On Father's Day two years ago we were trying to figure out something we could do that Dad would enjoy. He wanted to see ships in the Port of Sacramento, but something better caught my eye. An hour-long history cruise on the Sacramento River on the Hornblower. Then we'd go try to see cargo ships.

Delta King

The Hornblower departed from its dock in Sacramento's historic Old Town, next to the permanently moored Delta King, a paddlewheel steamboat with a rich history as a passenger boat in the 1920s, on military duty during World War II, an excursion boat on the Hudson River, a home to laborers in British Columbia, and a mysterious sinking in Richmond, California. Now it serves as a hotel/restaurant and nightclub. The Hornblower provided a narrated history lesson as we cruised north up the river in the hot sun. First we learned about the building of our Tower Bridge in 1934, and the historic I-Street drawbridge. Known as a metal truss swing bridge, it swings open horizontally instead of rising vertically.

Tower Bridge

I Street Bridge

Then we passed a ship-like dock--the historic air force docks. The "bow" (front side) of the dock measures the depth of the river. The oddly wing-shaped building sits on the "deck", walled with glass windows decorated with colored circles. I have no idea what this building houses or what it's for. A weather vane sits between the two wings. Further upriver, an historic power house. Further up, a shipwreck, and a whole story about how that happened and why the remains of the ship are still there--apparently providing good fish habitat. We passed riparian woodland, and the restaurants, docks, and marinas along the Garden Highway. We turned around at the confluence of the Sacramento and American Rivers, where people partied on the beach, in the park, and on the water.

Historic Air Force dock

Sunken ship

We cruised back to Old Town and disembarked. Unfortunately, that day we never made it to the Port of Sacramento, because I ran the Prius over a curb, broke it somehow, and we had to be towed to Folsom. Now we spend a lot of fun evenings in Old Town. Elegant dining, flavorful martinis, and live Irish music on a Thursday, or Americana-pop-classics on a Friday, at the Delta Bar & Grill has become a night on the town for us. And on an evening of extreme indulgence, we feast like sea lions on a bucket filled with a whole garlic-buttered crab at Joe's crab shack--sitting on the deck over the river, drinking a fancy cocktail, and watching the tie-died clad wait staff suddenly break into some silly dance. And then when that's done, the blues bar across the street or down the stairs is still open, in case we want to dance to a tune and have a beer.

So when my sister asked us if we wanted to do the Sacramento river cruise and Joe's Crab Shack for her birthday in October the following year, it was "hell yea!" I'd do it a third time if the occasion again arises. And I have yet to explore the other fun vacation-like options Old Town has to offer, such as underground tours, visiting the railroad museum, or showing up on Gold Rush Days, when Old Town closes itself to modern-day traffic and historian actors re-enact the early days of wagons, saloons, and gold prospecting. Now that's a whole lot of fun for a home town, where just blocks away I spend most of my time in a cube.

The Saga of Sunburn Revisited

The last time we heard from Sunburn, we were going over his heritage: born in Mexico of German parents at an assembly plant in Mexico City. It took 10 hours to cast all his engine parts, debus them, and assemble his 2.0-litre incline 4 engine made of German steel.

Sunburn was born in April of 1995 on a Wednesday. He is a Wednesday’s car. He is 18 years old, with 255,000 miles on his odometer. Needless to say, he has been to college and gone around the world 6 times. 18 years old for a commuter car is quite old, and he would be considered a Senior in a human lifetime.

This past week Sunburn wasn’t feeling so well. He called me on his telepathic new Alpine receiver, and I listened to what he had to say. He said, “Master, I’m not as fast as I once was, but I’m fast. My exhaust system has cancer, and I have a hole in my heart. My instrument cluster is only half working. My reply was “OK. Would you like to go to the old muffler shop in Fairfield? He blinked his headlights, “Yes.” So I got on the Internet, and low-and-behold, Dick’s Muffler and Hitches shop was still in business on North Texas Street. I called Rich, who has been working there 33 years, and made an appointment.

I told Rich I was in my second childhood, and that Sunburn wanted an exhaust with an attitude. This German kid was getting tired of being smoked by the rice burners. So Rich went to work and tore out both the old mufflers, installed a blue streak straight through the glass pack, and fixed the hole in his large intestine.

On the way home, Sunburn was a new man, looking for a rice rocket to devour. We were on North Texas Street, and pulled up beside a twin-turbo VTEC Honda with racing stripes all over it. Quite a formidable machine. His driver called us an “ugly piece of shit crout car.” Sunburn blinked at me through his half-lit instrument cluster, and I nodded my head, “Yes.” We told the Jap Honda that the Germans won the war, and we challenged him to a drag race to the freeway.

As the light turned green, we both put the pedal to the metal. Sunburn pulled ahead in third gear at 5200 RPM on the Tach. We (Sunburn and I) hit the freeway in the fast lane. I have his head at 85 MPH with the radar detector set at 360 degrees. The black knight Honda VTEC was never seen again.

Moral to the story: Never insult a sleeping Golf III; he might wax you with a “hole in one”.

20 mi(i5)-75 mi = 525 Ans: Hwy 25

It is the year of the snake, and the hibernating Gators have had the worst losing streak since 1979. Trivia: Did you know that a Gator can wag his tail like a dog?

Of the 4 million sports car enthusiasts that use their rides to get away from it all and change their focus from everyday problems to “the challenge of a mountain road”, California Highway 25 is a well-kept secret only shared by a few. When I was on it a few weeks ago, I only met one car on my 2-hour excursion near Hollister, CA.

Now, the saggers in high school all wear sweatshirts with HOLLISTER on the sleeve. When asked what “HOLLISTER” means, they say it’s just a brand. HOLLISTER is a real place, and you will find the start of Hwy. 25 downtown.

The Hollister hills are a study of geological phenomena. On one side of the highway are rolling hills, and the other is mountainous sheers. In the hills you will occasionally see a farmhouse in a crease.

Highway 25 is a work of art, built right on the San Andreas Fault line, so if you are afraid of earthquakes, “don’t even think about it.” There are spots on the road you can go 100 MPH (not legally), and scare the crap out of yourself. In the beginning, about 15 miles out of Hollister is the coolest mom & pop restaurant that serves fantastic soup and crab crepes.

Halfway through this “stairway to heaven”, there is a turn-off called Peachtree Road. This is a desolate, two-lane road that narrows down to one lane and makes you believe that you are at the ends of the earth. If you are afraid of blind curves, “don’t even think about it.” This is truly a “stoner” road, with absolutely no danger of cops. If you want to get further adventurous, take the Indian Valley Road. Don’t break down because the imminent Indian attack is still prevalent.

Since all roads lead to I-5, keep on going and you will find your way home, wagging your Gator tail behind you. So good luck, be careful, and enjoy.

The spirit of the road,

Bamba