A Day in Sacramento

This week I am in Sacramento working with a colleague. What should have been four days, sending me home on Thursday night, ended up being five. My colleague had to take a quick trip to Phoenix to speak at a convention on Wednesday. We worked Monday and Tuesday at one nursing home, she was gone on Wednesday and we will work Thursday and Friday at a different nursing home.

As a result, I had a day in the middle of the week to myself. I decided to be a tourist and go to downtown Sacramento. I stated off by trying to find the Governor's mansion where Arnold had lived. I actually found the historical Governor's Mansion Museum.

From there I drove to the California Capital Grounds and began an LONG walk. The grounds cover about four square city block and are beautiful!! The first garden I came across was the Cactus Garden.

From there I saw the Viet Nam Memorial for California servicemen who died or became missing in Viet Nam.

I was standing in the middle of the Memorial when I heard a voice and jumped. The voice came from another visitor, but I initially thought the Memorial was talking!!

From there I walked though out the grounds and finally arrived at the Capital Building. This is the California Governors Office and is well protected. I do not recall the Missouri Governor having such protection, but I don't think I have been there since 9/11.

A view of the California Capital Building.

After walking for about an hour in sandals, my feet and legs were tired!! I returned to the car and decided I was tired and wanted to go back to the hotel. The drive led me through streets with signs that kept pointing to 'Old Sacramento'. Since it was on the way, and I really had nothing else to do, I decide to check it out.

I'm glad I did.

It was an obvious tourist area and numerous troops of school children were there. The sidewalks were wooden and the shop signs designed in an 'Old Sacramento' language.

What I didn't expect to find was the Pony Express! I guess I should have. Being a St. Joseph person, it never occurred to me that there was somewhere else that was part of the Pony Express story. For some reason, they think it started there!

Here is the Pony Express Memorial, Sacramento style. Looks familiar, doesn't it?

By now my feet were totally tired and I was hungry. I found a cute little restaurant with outdoor seating.

Check out my lunch. This is the Vegetable Panini and it was very good. I couldn't eat the whole thing!!

All in all, a great day.

Tomorrow it is back to work.

Fast Trip

I was home until Wednesday morning. Hillary, Charlie and I toured the new Mormon Temple in Kansas City on Tuesday. It was a beautiful building, but not at all what I expected. I thought I would see a great big sanctuary for worship. It is actually three stories of little rooms for study and ceremonies.

I left KC at 6 AM on Wednesday, after waking to my whining cat at 3:30 AM. I left home a little after 4:30 and about a mile from the house realized that I didn't have a coat, but decided I didn't have time to go back and it surely couldn't be that cold.

I arrived in Sacramento at 9:45 AM and was picked up by my colleague to drive to Auburn, which is north of Sacramento. It was overcast and by the time we got to the nursing home it wasa raining and has continued to rain the whole time. This morning it was absolutely pouring and I made Monica drive up to the door to pick me up. She has a coat!

Auburn is an old California town. We worked until 6 last night and then started hunting for a place to eat. We wandered to the downtown and found a renovated area with trendy shops and eating places. We picked a cute little restaurant that had an acoustical guitar player and interesting food. I had a portabella mushroom sandwich and homemade potato chips. Monica had a Blue cheese Burger and zucchini french fries. By this time it is 10 PM Central Time and I have been awake way too long. I didn't even turn the TV on. Just snuggled down and went to sleep.

I head back to KC tonight and will be home around 1 AM. I hope is isn't TOO cold.

Arizona

I left Missouri around noon on Monday after a very warm week-end and arrived in Phoenix to cool breezes. Who would ever have thought one would need to go to Arizona to cool off?

My frustration here is that I never can figure out the Television schedule. Arizona is Mountain Time in the winter and Pacific Time in the summer. This is the only state that does not participate in daylight savings time. I made it to Yuma on Monday at 6:55 PM. I thought they would be on California time and the Dancing with the Stars would start at 8PM. I quickly changed to work out clothes with a plan to head to the exercise room, but decided to turn on the TV and make sure the timing was correct. Once I clicked on ABC I discovered my show was starting! Soooo, I reverted to PJ's and settled in.

Since I was awake by 5:30 the next morning, I was able to head to the treadmill and begin an exercise plan that I hope will keep me a bit more agile. Over the past couple of years I have been too satisfied to stay in the hotel room watching TV and surfing the Internet.

I am in Lake Havasu City, AZ today. To eliminate the need the change hotels every day, I decided to stay here two nights, arise early in the AM, and drive the 1 1/2 hours to Kingman in the morning. Thus, I was able to complete my walk/run this evening and have time to kick back and relax.

I really like the Arizona nursing homes. These buildings were the beginning of a new stage of my life. In 2005, when one stage or my life was ending, I was offered the opportunity to begin a new adventure. From there I established networks and friendships and polished my skills to allow me to move forward to a career that I had previously thought would only be a dream. That I am again allowed to interact with these people is a blessing that never ceases to amaze me.