OK, as promised here, I’m finally getting around to posting my long awaited (and long winded) notes about the trip to Sacramento and San Francisco last week. But be warned, this one is going to be pretty long.
Day 1:
The trip started last Wednesday at 5am at the school. Actually, I’m going to say it started at 4 since that’s when I had to wake up, and any time you have to get up that early, you should get credit for it. Although it was uncomfortably early, it made sense since they pack a lot into three days, so they’ve got to maximize the time, which was done pretty well.
The bus ride was about six hours, plus about 3 fifteen minute bathroom breaks at rest stops along the way. The brevity of the stops was actually pretty impressive considering there were about 30 kids plus one parent for each kid (for the most part); I would have thought you’d be looking at at least a half hour once you let that many kids off the bus.
Anyway, the ride up was pretty uneventful, with the exception of the tour guide making a derogatory comment (more of a negative insinuation, actually) about the field workers’ legal status as we passed some of them on I5. It probably didn’t bother most people, but those kinds of things really annoy me, so it seemed to stand out more to me. I am considering writing the tour company to complain about it actually, since I don’t think a school tour company should be propagating that kind of prejudice. Watching her right after she said it, though, I think she actually realized that she shouldn’t have after it occurred to her that half the people on the bus were Hispanic. They actually probably didn’t care, but I think the thought that they would came into her head, by the look on her face after no one laughed at the joke.
Anyway, we got into Sacramento and the first stop was Gold Bug Park. This was pretty cool, because we got to go into a couple mines (which I’ll post the video of later), one of which was really old and dug all by hand. It was pretty crazy.
Then we headed for the river to do some panning for gold. In between we saw an old documentary on the Gold Rush, and the history of California. One thing that struck me was how a lot of the California gold rush historical stuff is really just a monument to greed. There were a lot of people who either left behind or risked the lives of their families to make the dangerous trek out to California (not to mention slaughtering a lot of people along the way), just for the chance to get rich quick.
It’s kind of funny (or sick), but it actually reminded me of the current MLM/Amway schemes that are around today. Most of the people who participated in the gold rush did so for the dream of making enough money to live on so that they could quit their normal, “difficult” jobs and live the easy life (at least according to the journals and historians in this documentary). Having had the misfortune to hear many of the MLM pitches from various people, I can tell you that’s a common thread in their speeches. But the similarities don’t end there; also like the get-rich-quick MLMs of today, the vast majority of people who put a heck of a lot of effort into the gold rush ended up with absolutely nothing to show for it, and the ones that really ended up making all the money (except for the first wave that grabbed up most of the gold) were the people that actually sold the supplies to the gold diggers for highly inflated prices.
So we got to the river and were able to pan a few flakes of gold out and put them in a vial that Christian got to take home. This process is a real pain in the but though, and I can’t imagine how it would be worth that much time for such small pieces, but maybe it was different back in the day - they could probably still find bigger chunks back then.
Finally, after a long day of traveling and adventure, we arrived at our hotel for the first night, and dinner at the Memphis BBQ restaurant across the parking lot from our hotel rooms. It was pretty good, and I was actually pretty starving at the time, since I had forgotten to pack a lunch to eat on the bus ride during the day.
It was then that I first experienced something that would kind of bug me for the rest of the trip. As soon as we all get inside the restaurant and find tables, the guide wanted to get a count of how many people wanted which of the three meal options we had to choose from. When I spoke up and told her that a couple of the dads from my table had to go to the bathroom, but they wanted choice number three, she was kind of upset that they would go and do that. But the problem was that not only did she not tell anyone to stay put because she was going to do the count, but that she also just did the same count on the bus on the way to the restaurant, and was now doing an unannounced recount for some reason. Throughout the trip, getting upset at people not being ready to be counted (without any warning or notice) seemed to be a big pet peeve of hers.
Day 2:
First up for the next day was the trip to the state capitol. Actually, first up was the breakfast at the hotel, which was a buffet, but not the normal old “continental” style, this one was full-on everything you could ever have for breakfast, all you can eat. Christian was sure to grab an apple and a small thing of yogurt to save for “second breakfast” later on the trek (he’s been reading & watching Lord of the Rings a lot recently). I advised him that he could take the apple, but the yogurt was not a good idea.
Once we were finished and waiting around for everyone else to be done eating, I spotted some students playing with some yo-yos, so I had to go school them with my mad yo-yo skills that I learned from the master, and they seemed pretty impressed.
OK, now the first real stop was at the state capitol. As soon as we arrived and were getting off the bus, we discovered that Christian had decided that he needed to bring the yogurt anyway, and it was, in fact, not a good idea, as I had previously suggested. It was in the pocket of his jacket, which had found its way to the floor of the bus and gotten stepped on a couple times.
Once we got that straightened out, we were ready to go into the building, but as the tour guide was commenting on the external features of the building, she noted that the flag was at half mast, and asked if anyone knew why. You will be proud to know that I resisted the tremendous urge to make a smart-aleck “political” comment about it possibly being done in mourning of the loss of our freedoms in this country or something like that, since I don’t think a school tour is really the appropriate place for that kind of a discussion.
Anyway, we proceeded inside, and checked everything out. One highlight (or lowlight, depending on how you look at it) was seeing the state assembly in session and in action. We went into the senate chamber as well, but they were not in session at the time. On the other side of the building, the assembly did happen to be in action, and we sat in on a quite revealing session, for me at least.
As the various measures are introduced, and their proponents stand up and present their speeches to the other assembled representatives, pretty much all of the other ones in the room (and I’m not exaggerating) pay absolutely no attention whatsoever to what they guy (or girl) is saying. And I’m not just taking about daydreaming or doodling on their notepads; they are up from their seats, sitting on someone else’s desk a couple rows over, kicking back and loudly talking / joking with each other. Then whenever it is time for an actual vote, the speaker reads it so quick you’d think you were at a horse race, and everyone punches their appropriate button and moves on to the next issue.
I imagine it must have been kind of disillusioning for the kids to see that their “representatives” actually pretty much just have a sheet in the morning of what bills they’re supposed to vote for (a list probably drafted primarily by their lobbyists, but I didn’t comment on that either), and pretty much don’t actually do anything when they meet in that chamber other than mess around and press the appropriate, predetermined button when the time comes.
Once we had finished inside, we went out and were touring the various items / monuments in the garden area before it was time to leave. I got some pretty good video of most of the students being much more interested in chasing the squirrels that were running around the grounds and trees than listening to the tour guide try to tell them about what they were actually supposed to be looking at at the moment.
Next up was “Old Town Sacramento”, which was a cool looking area, with the wooden sidewalks and cobblestone streets. This is where the railroad museum was, which I personally thought was pretty cool, but I imagine may have been boring for the average 4th & 5th grader. We had some “free time” in town as well for lunch and exploration, which was OK for a while, but I found it a bit depressing that every single shop in this “historic” section of town was basically either a candy store, a restaurant, or a crappy souvenirs-that-no-one-needs store. Christian and I were walking around looking for a bookstore, or something that at least had something interesting, but we were out of luck. On the bright side, the taffy stores do let you have free samples while in the store, so Christian loaded up on those, and I had one or two as well.
From there, we headed over to Sutter’s Fort, which was exactly what it’s name implies: an old fort. One cool thing which I caught on video was related to this school that had a group there who were doing the full immersive experience, where they dress and live (camp out overnight) like the old timers did, including cooking, candlemaking and all the other things that go along with living in the 1840’s, without any of the “comforts” of modern life. The cool/funny thing I got on video was this one older girl who had found her way over to the back corner of the fort behind some barrels and was hiding there talking on her cell phone (which I’m pretty sure was post-1840’s-ish), while everyone else was busy doing things like washing clothes by hand and hammering horseshoes.
Then it was time to head for San Fransisco, where we would stay that night. But first, dinner at (of all places) Chuck E Cheese’s. While I was initially really not looking forward to this one, it actually was a pretty good idea. They have a salad bar now, apparently, so food-wise it was much better than I was expecting. Letting the kids run around like maniacs for a while was actually pretty brilliant too, since I realized that for most of the rest of the trip they actually have to be pretty calm and still, and they don’t get a lot of time to either do stuff that’s just fun or takes much physical exertion, so it turned out to be pretty good for them, I think.
Once we arrived in SF, the bus dropped us off at one end of town (Market St. area) where the cable car route across town starts, and we rode that over to the other side of town where our hotel for the night was. That was a pretty cool experience, despite the off and on (but mostly on) rain. Of course, for the sake of getting the full cable-car experience, I took the opportunity when the car began to get full and a group was getting on to offer my seat to a lady that was getting on, under the guise of letting her not have to stand up on the side rail and hang onto the pole, but just between us it was just because I’d rather stand on the side rail and hang off the edge anyway.
Even though the “official rules of the trip” pretty much… um… “discouraged” us parents from letting any of the kids actually stand up and ride out on the side, I figured it’s an essential part of the experience, so I let Christian and his friend do it for a couple blocks and then had them sit back down before anyone else noticed (I think they were actually a bit scared anyway, so they happily took their seats again). But, come on, if you’re going to ride a San Fransisco cable car, you’ve really got to do the hanging on the pole thing to get the full effect.
As a side note, I really like the city of San Francisco, and hopefully we’ll head back up there sometime soon for a quick weekend vacation or something. I think maybe part of it was that it reminded me of Manhattan a bit, because I really like that whole “crowded in” city feel, with all the tall buildings and tons of people, more than the spread out and less impactful LA type “big city”.
Day 3: (Yes, it IS almost done…)
We stopped by the IHOP next door to the hotel before breakfast in the morning morning, then walked over to catch the ferry over to Alcatraz island. This was pretty cool, because they give you headphones which give you a full “self-guided” audio tour of the facility as they tell you where to go and point out all the attractions, interspersed with sound effects and interviews with former inmates, etc. One of the tales involved the infamous escape that was made by digging into the wall and climbing up to the ceiling and then out. Although the three guys that did this were never heard from again, it did make me think about whether I could have done it (being a man, you have to think of these things when you visit Alcatraz, that’s just the way it is). The swim actually isn’t that far, and I really doubt those waters are as “shark infested” as the rumors suggested.
On the ferry ride back to shore, we picked up a couple hot dogs and a coke to enjoy on the deck on the way back, but as soon as we got up there, Christian spilled the soda, so I had to run back down inside and scrounge around for something to clean it up with, and found that some lady that just hit the snack bar before us took every last napkin they had, all in one fell swoop. The snack bar attendant said that there always seems to be one person that does that; which made me wonder (A) why someone would do that, and (B) if someone “always” does it, how about stocking up on some more napkins?
Once back at shore, we had some hang out & lunch time at Pier 39, which is the tourist-targeted shopping pier. You can basically think of it like a mall built on top of a big pier, with a lot more food court stores and pretty much nothing else of interest or significance. Like old town Sacramento from the day before, the sheer commercialism/consumerism of it all was a bit overwhelming for me. Luckily we found an arcade at the end of the pier, so (after buying a few necessary souvenirs for Martha, Riley, and Emma) Christian and I played some video games until it was time for lunch and then leaving.
Our final stop of the trip (and my favorite) was at the Exploratorium. This place was amazing; its basically a huge building with all kinds of hands-on scientific demonstrations that the kids can run around and play with / perform for themselves. Due to lack of time, we only got to spend a little over an hour here, but I am definitely going back sometime and bringing the kids for a much longer stay. If I had one thing I could change about the trip, it would be to shave off a couple of the shopping hours from Pier 39 or something and spend them here.
Finally, it was time for the long ride home. After an extremely long bus ride, we ended up getting back in Ventura around 1:30 am, very tired and apparently infected with whatever sickness would end up manifesting itself later, because both Christian and I have been sick ever since then.
All in all, it was a great trip. The kids had a blast, and there was a lot of great stuff to see and do. I’m probably leaving all sorts of interesting details out, but it’s been a while and I didn’t actually take any notes at the time or anything, and frankly, I’d be pretty surprised if anyone’s still reading at this point anyway, so I’d better wrap it up.
19 Comments
i read it all. wow, what to comment on… i suppose it’s better that they spread out the learning, but there’s so much cool/amazing stuff for the gold rush era, i’d want an entire gold rush trip. especially all the entrepreneurship that happened.
was this your first trip to sf? sf and its history seems like a whole trip unto itself as well. especially since we’re coming up on the 100 year anniversary of the great earthquake and fire (april 18th-21st i believe). i’m surprised the trip didn’t cover any of that since there are a ton of special events going on right now, including some walking tours of the few remaining buildings.
in alcatraz, do they have the actual hole in the wall the guys dug? that would be awesome. we’re planning on doing a sf trip sometime, but it keeps getting pushed back by other things. alcatraz is the one “thing” in the city i haven’t done, but i guess we should save that for when the kids are older.
Why does one have to be a “man” to think about swimming from ALcatraz Island? Many women (young and old, in wetsuits and not) swim it each year. I am 52 and am swimming ot for the 3rd time this fall. I am going for 10 or more….
The distance isn’t really the obstacle when you are swimming from the island. It’s the cold, and the chop and the current. If you are a good swimmmer, meaning you swim several miles a week, it will not be “hard”, but it will be something you will remember for the rest of your life! Hope to see you in the bay some year!
According to an Alcatraz documentary that I saw on National Geographic, the shark thing was something the guards told the inmates to scare them.
Nathan:
Yes, it was a bit jam packed and some stuff may have been missed, but at the same time I found it to be just about perfect for this age of kids (4th and 5th). Any more stuff and the trip would have needed to be more than 3 days, which I think would have been a bit harder, and it also would have been more expensive.
As for the gold rush stuff, we got a lot of hands on experience at the mines, walking through them and learning about them, and panning for gold pretty much rounded it out. I don’t think there was much more to see there that wasn’t covered in the documentary film on the bus ride.
As for SF, I’ve been a few times before, but never for historical learning purposes, more just for fun. They did actually cover quite a bit of earthquake stuff as we traveled through town on the bus, we just didn’t make any specific stops related to it. I’m OK with that though, since there’s only so much you can do, and that probably would have been a bit on the boring side anyway, for the kids tastes and mine.
As for Alcatraz, yes, during part of the tour they take you to the actual cells of the prisoners involved in the escape, which included replicas of the fake bodies that they had put in their beds to trick the guards. The backs of their cells where they had chipped away, expanding the ventilation hole looked pretty authentic, too, but I’m not 100% positive that it hadn’t been repaired and then later “restored” to its broken state for the purposes of the tour. Looked pretty authentic to me, either way though.
Alcatraz was definitely an interesting stop and I’d recommend it to anyone, especially the audio tour accompaniment via the headphones; I think that added a lot to the experience. You’re probably right about the kids’ ages as well, they’d probably enjoy it more a bit later. There is also a bit of a good hike to get up to the top of the island from the docks; no big deal, but you wouldn’t want to have to push a stroller up it.
Iron-Lady:
Sorry, didn’t mean to offend anyone, or suggest any chauvinistic bias on my part. I was actually talking about thinking of whether one could escape from the prison, not thinking of just the swim itself. Even still, I’m sure the thought might run through a few female minds as well, but I don’t think that there were any women incarcerated there, that’s all.
The swim does actually sound very interesting, though, and sounds like something I’d love to try sometime. I’m not quite back to my high-school water polo & swimming shape yet, but I have been (until recently) swimming about 5 miles a week as part of my effort to get back in shape. Maybe I will get a chance to see you there sometime.
Nick: yeah, that’s what I thought.
Sounds very cool. I always loved school trips like that. In San Diego, where I grew up, there is the Reuben H. Fleet Space Museum that is, it sounds, a lot like the Exploritorium. I always loved to go there as a kid.
the emersive panning for gold stuff is what sounds boring to me. it’s cool for context, but the real exciting stuff is the important people that came out of those situations. the inventers, entrepreneurs, and artists that shaped the culture of the area after the fevor left are the ones that ended up shaping the course of american history and i really like reading about and seeing where these people got their inspiration.
it helps me understand how to be inspired to change the world if i study what inspired others to do it.
but i do recognize that 4th and 5th graders aren’t so interested in that. i was just speaking about me personally.
I would like to go do the whole Sacramento/San Francisco trip thing. Never have been to either city. To see the state capital would be cool. Randy and i had planned a trip to SF last summer but it didn’t work out. It’s funny though…on all the websites of “things to see and do in SF” that I looked at while planning for the trip, Pier 39 seemed to always be on the top of people’s list of things to do. Wonder why. Thanks for the warning- I would rather now go to the Exploratorium now. Maybe we could all take a family trip to SF???
Ya, that would be cool.
Pier 39 could be fun if you like eating junk food and buying useless souvenirs. I guess I shouldn’t make it sound so bad; it does look pretty cool, and I’m sure a lot of people would like it. If you like malls, it’s basically like a mall in a really good location, it just doesn’t have any book stores or anything like that. The arcade was pretty good too, and it did have an aquarium at the beginning, which we didn’t go in. There was also this thing where you could make your own things full of different colored (and scented) sand, but I’m not sure what those are called.
I guess after saying all that, it wasn’t quite so bad, I think I just wasn’t in the mood for it at the time. It also might have been better if it wasn’t raining.
I’m sad that I couldn’t get through the post, it’s too long and the comments are making it longer. Fill me in tonight if you are coming over. Otherwise I’ll take it that you had a good time, learned a little, got sick after and got annoyed by a few people.
Might wnt to check out sk2 it gave me an error after the submit.
As for it being too long, if you’re interested, then you’ll read it, if not then you won’t. I’d rather not try to over-edit myself just for the arbitrary purpose of making shorter posts. I do realize that some people are too lazy to read long things, and it’s OK with me if they don’t read my posts because of that.
What did the error say, or was it too long to read?
The error was way too long to read, it went on for days. Something about c*lis, sort of weird but it happened both times.
is this a first? dan didn’t read something, but i did? i guess cuz it was about something cool.
OK, should be fixed now.
I’m a tour guide in Sacramento. I also retired from the California State Railroad Museum after 21 years.
Couple of thoughts and questions:
1. What tour company did you go with?
2. Disregard that non-sense about sharks. The issue about swimming from The Rock is the currents and whether you catch them right.
3. Did you report the tour director for the racist comments? Sure hope so.
4. Sounds like you didn’t have much of a tour director. At dinner I tell everyone they need to be seated first. Then the teacher starts releasing tables showing good behavior to go to the restroom AND wash their hands. Occassionaly, on the way in, someone says they REALLY need to go. I point them to the restroom. It actually works pretty well.
5. With all respect, I don’t have much patience for those who dis those in the past for their “greed.” They all worked within the parameters of accepted behaviour. As our society has matured morally and culturally those parameters have tightened and continue to tighten (Did you know no woman had ever been elected to the state legislature until the mid-70’s?). it’s pretty safe to say that without those “greedy” people you wouldn’t have had the $ to make a three-day field trip with your son. Or maybe even live in CA.
Bottom line: I REALLY enjoyed your observations about the trip. Thanks!
Cool, glad you enjoyed it. I don’t remember the name of the company right now, I’d have to dig back through the papers.
As for the greed thing, I’d agree, although I do think it’s important to recognize rather than white-wash the not so nice parts of our history. Economically, I’m sure our state wouldn’t be what it is today if that hadn’t happened, just like our country probably wouldn’t be where it is without things like slavery, but that doesn’t make those things good.
I really wasn’t trying to badmouth them necessarily, or downplay their contributions to society, etc., just point out some of the things that jumped out at me that you don’t often think about in the context of those stories. One in particular was the tales of the men who left their homes in other parts of the country to pursue the opportunity to get rich quick in California. In some cases, they left behind their wives and children (who probably had to work incredibly hard to provide for themselves in the absence of their husband/father), and in others they took them with them on a very dangerous trip which claimed many of their lives.
I just think that it’s interesting that there is a tendency to ascribe some sort of nobility to their actions because of the fact that we are reaping some of the benefits of their efforts, but in reality it seems to me that the motives for many were rather less than admirable, and the amount of suffering they were willing to put their families through for the prospect of easy money is not something I can respect, any more than a guy who cleans out his family’s life savings in our day and age to go blow it in Vegas for the chance to make millions, even if he does say he’s only doing it to make a better life for him and his family.
I understand what you’re saying and that was a good analogy about the savings. But you still need to keep it all in context. People didn’t really start arriving in this country until 149 years before, or less. Most of those going west farmers from Indiana, Ohio, etc. They’d moved west to those states trying to find a place for themselve’s. That’s literally why all of them immigrated to America. The gold rush was their chance to “make it” One can’t glibly say it was all about “show me the $” because it was such a dangerous and life threatening choice to make.
Many were shysters, gamblers, crooks and whores looking to find easy prey in the miners.
A smaller group, which included Colis P. Huntington, were sharp business who had no intention of panning for gold. He was a successful hardware store owner with his brother and he successfully opened a hardware store in the boom town of Sacramento with Mark Hopkins. Both went on to be part of the Big Four of the Central Pacific Railroad which, as you know since you went to the rr museum (-: was the western half of the transcontinental railroad.
This mess we’re in in Iraq will come back to bite us in future history. And it should, as should the anihaltion of the Native Americans in our country, Hitler, Stalin, Mao. They are/were all cancers on the mores of their time.
But you can’t make assumptions of right or wrong of a populace in general using current values and morals. It wasn’t right and it wasn’t wrong. It just “was.” And if something was perceived as wrong by the populace it was changed, like the Sherman Anti-Trust Bill to reign in the tycoons who were making tons of $ (LEGALY) on the backs of the poor.
Gees! How did I get on this soap box! (-: What city are you living in?
Bill