Day Trips from Lodi

We had a number of trips planned for our vacation - Yosemite, Sonora, Lake Tahoe - but had to cancel all of them after I got sick.  After I started feeling better, even though I couldn't drive, we made a couple of day trips from Lodi that were fun and made up a little for all that we had missed.

We were less than an hour from Sacramento and I had read about Old Sacramento and wanted to see it.  We enjoyed walking through the streets that have been preserved in their old western style, although the shops are relentlessly touristy and reminded me of River Street in Savannah.  It was also extremely hot so we didn't spend a whole lot of time walking around outside.

Under different circumstances it would have been fun to rent bicycles and explore the area, especially the riverside, by bike, but there was no way I could ride a bike when I had trouble with balancing while walking.  I would have liked to see Frank try to ride this bike though.

We arrived in Sacramento in the morning so we had lunch there.  I had already picked the place - an old riverboat that has been turned into a hotel and restaurant, The Delta King.  The food was very good.  In fact, Frank thought it was one of the best meals he had while we were in California and evaluated everything he had after that using the salmon he ate as the standard.

We spent a good part of the afternoon in the California State Railroad Museum, wishing we had our grandchildren with us, especially Alex, who has loved trains since he was a wee tot.  The museum is quite amazing even for people like us who are not really into trains except as a means of transportation. 

Speaking of trains as a means of transportation, Louise and Michael invited us to join them on the Sierra Dinner Train for a fun evening.  It began at the train station in Oakdale, where a mock talent show took place.  That's Cher in the picture, as you can see, with her back-up group which included Louise.  The winner of the talent show was supposed to get a lot of money but unfortunately the show was rigged and the participant with absolutely no talent won.  This led to a murder which it was our task to solve.   

After the preliminaries we boarded the train that took us into the foothills of the Sierras.

The food on the train was surprisingly good but the "Murder Mystery" was pretty cheesy and there was no way to logically deduce who the murderer was.  We could only guess at the end and none of us got it right.  Luckily, the play only took up a small part of the trip so we had lots of time to chat and enjoy  the company.

The train ride itself took us 16 miles into the Sierra foothills and then the engine was switched to the other end and we rode back to Oakdale.  It took us at least two hours so I figure we were traveling at about 16 mph.  The scenery was a little barren but it was so different from Germany that I found it exotic.

All in all we had a great time with Louise and Michael and it was hard to say good-bye to them.  I hope we can make it back to California soon to see them since Louise can't fly to visit us.

My mother's family is from Sonora and I was there several times as a child.  One of the things that I remember best is our visit to Calaveras Big Trees State Park when I was about twelve years old. 

Frank and I decided to drive there even though it was more than two hours away.  (I know, that's nothing for Californians, but it was about as far as we were willing to go for a day trip.)  The trees are as amazing as I remembered them and we really enjoyed the hiking trail through the North Grove.  The forest shielded us from the heat of the day but at the same time it was bright and sunny.  I remembered the tree stump in the picture above because we were told that people had square danced on it and at that time I was square dancing regularly.  The tree was felled in 1853 and was 1,244 years old according to the rings in the stump.

It's almost impossible to demonstrate how big these trees are in a picture, especially if there is no person in it.  I deleted almost all the photos I made without people in them because there was no scale to show the hugeness of these trees.

On the right are the roots of a tree that was blown over in a storm.  The tree itself was too big to photograph.  On the left is what is left after the bark was taken from the tree to reconstruct it in Europe to amaze everyone.  Unfortunately the tree no longer had any protection against fire and only a burnt crust is left.

This is one of the most memorable trees because it is awesome to walk through it.  Theoretically you could drive a car through it, which I think they used to do before cars were banned from the park.

Aren't the children cute?  They look so tiny up against the tree, which is actually a double giant redwood. 

I certainly hope that the state park system can save these trees from extinction.  There are enough people who would love to get their hands on them to cut into timber and sell for profit.  Luckily no one can do this on the sly so maybe the trees will be around for another thousand years.

On our way home we stopped at the old gold mining town of Murphys.  Unfortunately it was the Monday before the 4th of July and it was very crowded.  It's a nice little town to visit and has some interesting shops.  We had to wait a while to get a table at Murphys Grille on Main Street, but when we were finally served our lunch it was very good.  All in all a very enjoyable excursion.