Sacremento, CA

As we headed into Sacramento today, we saw 4 deer jump the fence and head up the hill. We thought they were very young deer but a local told us they were the native Calif 'black deer', a small deer.

In 1859, Capt. John Sutter , a Swiss emigrant, settled at the confluence of the Sacramento and American rivers on a 50,000 acre land grant from the Mexican Government. The Town of Sacramento was laid out on his property in 1848 – the same year that James Marshall discovered gold near the south fork of the American river, to start the great California Gold Rush. Sacramento became a major supply center for the northern Mother Lode country. The rich vein of gold called ‘La Veta Madre’ ( Mother Lode) by the Mexican miners, laced the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains for 120 miles.

We drove 50 minutes into Sacramento and met friends at Vince’s Ristorante for a delicious lunch and visit. You would not believe the huge size of the entrees. I took 2/3 home. Next we went to the Campbell Soup Store, where products are offered at minimal prices to employees. That was quite interesting and we did buy some stuff. Gas at Costco was $2.93, apparently has just gone up.

Our next stop was at the Governor’s Mansion State Historic Park. This Second Empire Italiante Mansion built in 1847, has housed California’s Governors and their families from 1903 to 1967. Arnold and Maria don’t live there. He flies in for State business. The woman at AAA who told me this seemed quite disappointed in him. It is an impressive looking wooden structure smack in the middle of old Sacramento. Then we went to the State Capital itself 2 blocks away, situated in a 40 acre park which was planted with 800 trees and shrubs of 200 varieties from all over the world in 1870. It looks comparable to our Legislative Building in Victoria. It was built 1860–74 in a style similar to that of the White House in Washington D.C. It houses 40 Senators and 80 Assembly members for their 55 million people. It is an impressive building with lots of marble and a statue of Columbus appealing to (Spanish) Queen Isabella under its magnificent Dome which is 210' above street level. Californians wrote the first California State Constitution in Monterrey in 1849 and became the 31st state in 1850.