Fun in Old Town, and Resting Up for the Weekend
Friday, August 27, 2010: It cooler again this morning, Yesterday it was about 67-degrees in the early morning; today it's about 53-degrees... and it's only supposed to get up to about 88. Wow! How nice is that?!
Marty and I worked on our computers until about 9:30, then we went into downtown Sacramento, where "Old Town Sacramento" is nestled in against the river. I had never been there before. It's all 1800's buildings with modern day shops and restaurants in them. Lots of really neat kitschy stuff. I took a lot of shots of the facades of the buildings, and stuff, and then we stopped in at a place called Sweet Tails Donuts and Crepes, and both of us had crepes and coffee for breakfast. Marty's were ham, eggs, and cheese; and mine were spinach, artichokes and cheese. The crepes were good, but the coffee was horrible. The woman behind the counter cooks and bakes everything herself (and only accepts cash -- how archaic! -- so we had to run across the street to the Wells Fargo museum and use their ATM.
After breakfast, we made our way down to the train museum and took some photos in there. The Union Pacific train -- which we dubbed "The Behemoth" -- was the largest train I had ever seen. The docents in the museum said just the engine of the trian weighed in at over a million pounds! The wheels on the side of it where taller than my whole body. It was like standing next to a dinosaur (and, I guess, figuratively speaking, it WAS a dinosaur). We walked through an antique sleeper car, and I was impressed with the way the seats folded down into beds, and other beds pulled out of the ceiling; and how the passageways could be narrowed or widened by pulling on the walls. Amazing. Then we toured the dining car, and I loved seeing all the different china settings used by the different railroads. There was also a private car that was outfitted like Jim West's train car in the old "Wild, Wild West" television series. I couldn't get any good photos of that one, though, because it was so dimly lit inside. I thought all of the trains were really fascinating, but the passageways were so narrow, and the compartments so small, they alll set off my claustrophobia like you wouldn't believe. No way would I be able to travel in one of those for more than a handful of minutes.
After that we went into a shop called Evangeline's. Marty wanted to show me that one because it was so funs and kitschy inside. They had all sorts of costumes and novelty stuff packed floor to ceiling. Because it was a weekday, there weren't many people there, but Marty says on the weekends it's so packed you can barely move. I got a Marti Gras mask, black and silver with beads hanging down the front, and a sequined Oriental fan.
By then it was lunchtime, so we went over to the Delta King, a paddleboat that's anchored on the shore there, and ordered some salads for lunch. Marty had one made with fugi apples and different kinds of lettuce, and I had a shrimp Louie salad (shrimp, lettuce, cherry tomatoes, klamatas olives, and hard boiled egg.) The salads were super-fresh and very tastey. We were seated on the upper deck, but there are larger dining rooms on the lower deck, and the back half of the boat has staterooms in it that you can sleep in overnight (like a hotel on the water). Outside the Delta King were several boats owned by Hornblower cruises, that take up on tours up and down the river. That might be fun to do sometime in the evening... see the city lit up all along the river.
On our way out of Old Town we stopped at a shop that has a lot of movie memorabelia, and I took some photos in there of their weird Disney paintings. There were a few Star Trek and Star Wars things in there, but nothing Marty or I felt compelled to purchase. By then my ankles were killing me and I could barely walk anymore, so we headed back to the car. Once home, we collapsed on the sofa, watched "Judge Alex" on ug usTV and recuperated with the dogs. It was a tiring, but VERY fun day.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE PICTURES OF THE CITY, OLD TOWN AND THE BOATS
Saturday, August 28, 2010: Oooo, my ankles are so sore today from all the walking we did yesterday... Ouch, ouch, ouch. But the weather is lovely today. It was overcast when i got up, around 7:30 am, and remained cool all day, only about 72-degrees. Hard to believe that just a few days ago it was over 108! I have Algebra homework to get to today and I just can't focus. My brain must still be totally fuzzed-out from the court stuff and trips this week... Weird.
I ran over to BelAir right after I got up to get some groceries, and to get a coffee cake for Marty. Believe it or not, ALL of their coffee cakes were gone: from the bakery, the Entemann's sections, even the freezer section, and I had to settle for an icky apple pull-apart instead. I did get some stuff to make chili, though, and some steaks to cook outside later this afternoon -- if it doesn't rain... Broke, now, until my next check from the EDD. In the mail today I got the bill for the Public Defender fees in Shasta: $480, but they'll let me make payments of $50 per month; so, for the next 10 months I'm still "connected" to that damn county... I put together a formal complaint to the State Attorney General's office and the State Bar against the DA and his minions and will mail those off on Monday...
Gad, I just heard one our creepy neighbors yakking on a cellphone to one of his homies telling them that one of their people had just been indicted and was going away for "nine years", and that the cops were now looking for another one of their friends. "Let him know they're after him, okay. They want to talk to him. Let him know that if you see him." Then he kept saying, "No, I'm not a part of it, dude. No, I'm not a part of it. I didn't do anything." Cripes. F-ing criminals; why don't they go live someplace else?
DVD Stuff: Marty and I watched the new "Clash of the Titans" today. It had received some mixed, and some horrible reviews, but I thought it was done well. The story moved right along, the monsters were kewl, and Ralph Fiennes as Hades was wonderful -- even down to his "smoker's" voice. Medusa was actually beautiful, and the kraken was sufficiently awesome. I don't know what people were expecting. It was never meant to be a deep emotional drama; it was a monster-of-the-week kind of film. I enjoyed it.
Also saw "Cop Out" with Bruce Willis, in which he plays a parody of himself. It had little funny moments, but overall was stupid: too much toilet humor, which I don't find funny in the least, and gags without any comic timing that went on for waaaay too long or just fell flat. What a waste.