Old Town Sacramento, September 5, 2001
(Posted September 8, 2001 © Herbert E. Lindberg)

Our friends Walt & Hazel Baldasti and Dick & Lorraine Snow arrived at our home on Tuesday, September 4, for our annual September get-together. Mary had an exciting schedule planned that began with a bang and went non-stop until their departure this morning. Our happy greetings Tuesday afternoon were followed by a barbequed pork loin dinner and then an evening cruise on the lake to see the sunset and stars. Wednesday morning Mary had an egg and bacon casserole breakfast ready, with freshly baked strawberry muffins, fruit, and lots of hot coffee.

As this breakfast settled in, the six of us piled into our Expedition for a trip to Old Town Sacramento. This was my fourth visit to the Railroad Museum so I was ready with my camera and a tripod to take pictures in the dramatic low-level lighting. To my surprise, as I entered the museum the attendant told me my camera was fine but tripods weren't allowed. The pictures below are the best I could manage with a hand-held camera. Flash pictures are hopeless because there's so much to light up and the polished engines reflect light away from the camera (like the poor lighting of wet pavement by car headlights).

Classic steam engine displayed on mirrors.

Another old classic.

Street scene created in the museum.

Lorraine, Mary, Walt and Dick in the street scene.
After touring the museum (I didn't want to leave because they had opened a new section on train maintenance and repair in the upstairs balcony) we had lunch at Fat City, two block from the museum in Old Town. Then we toured the Delta King river boat, moored permanently on the bank of the Sacramento River. It's now a hotel with a theater and fancy bar.

Mary, Lorraine, Dick and Walt on gangway to the Delta King.

Hazel, Mary, Lorraine, Dick and Herb.

The whole gang, taken by a passer-by.

The visit to Old Town was just the beginning. Thursday morning we played tennis on the two courts near the Marina on Lake Wildwood. After showers and some loafing on our deck watching the water skiers do the slalom course, or watching the U.S. Open Tennis on TV as the spirit moved us, we piled back into the Expedition and were off to a gourmet dinner at Rainbow Lodge near the Royal Gorge Ski Resort in the Sierra mountains. This is about an hour's drive east on Route 20 from our home in Lake Wildwood.

When we arrived home about 10:30 p.m. we crashed into bed because the men had to get up at 5:45 a.m. to be at the Lake Wildwood Golf Course at 7:30 a.m. Meanwhile, the ladies went into Nevada City to shop and have lunch at the Country Rose. After golf we men watched a bit more of the U.S. Open and rested in preparation for another night on the town. But first Mary cooked another gourmet diner, with salmon that I barbequed.

At 7:45 p.m. we were back in Nevada City to see "Put Another Nickel In" at the Off Broadstreet "Desert Theater." None of us had ever gone to a play there, but Mary and I had heard the shows were always great. We weren't disappointed. I was expecting some kind of amateur home-cooked melodrama, because it's a local production written and directed by John Driscoll, who also moved the stage furniture, took in the money, answered the phone, and so on. The cast is also a local group. The play started slowly, with no hint of the musical talent of the 5-person cast, four men in their early to late 60's and a handsome woman of about 45. Before long they were doing some in- and out-of-character antics that had us laughing out loud and smiling in awe as they sang old favorites from the 1960's.

The play was a fitting finale to four fun-filled days. We all look forward to getting together next September, rotated to Tucson with the Snows.

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