Sacramento area

CA State Capital

Our home at Lake Minden RV Park
Nicolaus, CA

We are enjoying our stay north of Sacramento.  Our site at the RV park is on the outside edge where we have an open hay field and can see many miles to the east all the way to the snow covered Sierra Mountains.  It is so flat around here that they have miles and miles of rice fields full of water.  The elevation is only 35.  We see lots of Red Tail Hawks circling the field especially when they were bailing and picking up hay.  The RV park surrounds a lake (I believe it is man made) which is a nice 1.5 mile walk around.  We see fish, ducks, and Blue Herons as we walk to the sound of bull frogs (haven't actually seen one yet).    

Lake Minden - Lake Minden RV Park

Last weekend's tourist trips started with a visit to the State Capitol building and Old Sacramento on Friday afternoon.  The Capitol was very nice.  They did a nice little touch by setting up some rooms as they were actually used in 1906.

Old Sacramento was very cool from an old building standpoint.  They've done a very nice job of restoring buildings.  There are some museums but most buildings just contain shops.  We ignored how they were using the building (shops) and just focused on enjoying the old buildings and imagining the life of the historical location. 

Old Sacramento

Saturday was spent going over to the foothills of the Sierras to Nevada City, a gold rush town.  Here again was a beautiful little town with restored old buildings.  It was very cool again to walk around there.  After eating lunch we went to Empire Mine State Park.  This was a site of a huge gold mine and several smaller ones - none still operating.  They have a museum and you can walk around checking out old equipment and buildings.  We went on a 3 mile walk in the woods that went by several old mine sites from the late 1800s.

Nevada City, CA

It's pretty hot here, mid-90s, which isn't what I was expecting.  For some reason I thought it would be cooler here.  It is supposed to cool off some the next couple of days.  We head into Oregon this weekend with our next stop being near Salem on Sunday.  We'll be able to take in another State Capitol.