Another State Capital Building!

Anyone following our blog will know that we have a thing for ticking-off state capital buildings on our travels and being in Sacramento turned-up for the 9:00 am tour ..... the only ones!

We got the full personal tour and it is a fine building, having a magnificent dome, a series of beautiful rooms refurbished with the theme of "Post 1906 San Francisco Earthquake", and several quirky secrets in its infrastructure! It also has a great view of Tower Bridge.

 The building also houses a unique and insightful exhibit telling the storey of the Great American Dust-bowl and the subsequent migration of people from the central states affected, to California. Both John Steinbeck and Woody Guthrie featured prominently. Leaving the capital building we walked through the surrounding park which has many different and impressive trees from all over the world. Moving down towards Tower Bridge, we took a right turn and entered Sacramento Old Town, on the river-front. This area comprises many of the original buildings established to support the California Gold-rush and is now home to tourist shops, eateries and museums.

We ate lunch in a cool saloon-like restaurant before heading for the Hardware Store Museum. The latter is a living museum and exhibits many items that would have been sold to the original miners. It is the original store building whose founder went on to help finance the Union Pacific Railroad and did pretty well as a result!

Sacramento is a very pleasant city which is clean, walk-able, and steeped in California's history. Stretching my mind to think of a musical link to Sacramento, the best I could come up with was the following from Neil Young;s 'After the Gold Rush' album!