Sacramento Trip!

We drove through the rain to Sacramento stopping only once because Ro didn't tell us he needed to use the bathroom until it was too late.  Once we got that figured out, the rest was pretty smooth sailing.  We stayed on the 7th floor of the Hyatt Regency across from Capitol Park.  For the most part, Ro was pretty good all week except for when he was really tired (unfortunately, that was most of the time).  He still doesn't quite understand hotel etiquette such as not running/stomping around the hotel room, or shouting.  The main problem with his little kid voice is that the high pitch is loud no matter what volume he speaks.  So, he had a hard time remembering that he needed to speak softer or whisper at night.  I think we might take him on another trip again.  While B was in his conference classes, Ro and I roamed around downtown Sacramento, Old Sacramento, and Sutter's Fort. 

The first thing we did Monday was check out an umbrella from the hotel and have breakfast at a Starbucks Reserve near Golden 1 Center.  Ro usually gets an everything bagel with cream cheese whenever we go to Starbucks.  Since we were at a special Starbucks store, I opted for a Vanilla Cardamon latte -- I ended up drinking only half of it because the spices were pretty strong for the coffee.  Ro asked for a milk before we left, but decided to take only a few sips of it.  From there, we walked all the way to Old Sacramento to check out the California State Railroad Museum.

Ro playing with toy trains at the California State Railroad Museum.

Ro's favorite part of the California State Railroad Museum was were watching the toy trains run upstairs and the kids play area.  I got a lot of reading done (Where the Crawdads Sing, remember?) while Ro was playing in the museum.  We had also checked out the other exhibits.  Ro described the railroad workers exhibit as being "from his nightmares," but I suspect that was only because it was pretty dark.  He liked seeing the big trains and ran up to press "buttons" on the information boards pretending they were his computers.  We went on the sleeper car exhibit, and I scared him by telling him, "Feel that?  I guess this train is leaving the museum."  He tried to run back out immediately, but I stopped him and one of the conductor docents also tried to tell him it was only a simulation.  He was still a bit too afraid to go on the dining car exhibit afterwards, but he liked looking at the kitchen.  The docent in that car let him ring the dining bell, but Ro was done with the walk through exhibits after that.  

Afterwards, Ro rang the school bell at the Old Sacramento School Museum.  I don't think he completely understood the exhibit mostly because he thought he escaped going to school.  We ate lunch at Joe's Crab Shack.  I had never been to one of those restaurants before and Ro does like seafood.  It was good we were seated in the middle of the restaurant to keep Ro contained, but I wish we had sat closer to the windows.  There was a really good view of the Sacramento River and the rain.  Ro was fairly good and ate most of his cheeseburger meal.  I got a snow crab leg basket, and Ro kept begging for crab meat.  The meal game with two crab claws so I got to clean them out and show Ro how to play with them.  He was really disappointed when I wouldn't let him take them from the restaurant even though I tried to tell him they would go bad and start to stink.  

From the restaurant, we walked down the waterfront to the California Automobile Museum.  We actually might have walked right past it if Ro didn't need to use the bathroom right then and there.  The museum itself was pretty small but really well organized and there are a lot of cars for one space.  The other neat thing about this museum that many other car museums don't have are cars that anyone can step into and "drive."  You could even "crank the engine" for one of the cars.

How we got back to the hotel after the California Automobile Museum.

Are you f-ing kidding me to put a Mazda Miata in a car museum?! They also had an absurd 1989 Toyota Camry that looked a lot like Anna's mom's old car.  I could understand the DeLorean DMC-12, but not those other two!

The car museum even had another kids play area with toy cars and books that Ro spent an hour playing in.  I think I may have gotten through a third of my book there.  At one point though, I noticed that Ro was wiggling a bit too much.
Me: Ro, do you--
Ro: NO, I DON'T NEED TO GO TO THE BATHROOM!!
Me: If you don't need to go, how did you know what I was going to ask.

So, every now and then I had to keep dragging him over to the bathroom in the middle of his play.

Around four, I dragged him out of the car museum and we walked past the CalPers offices to go to an organic grocery store Market 5-ONE-5.

Each time I pass by State government buildings like that, I hate the people who work there a little bit more because their offices look so cozy.

Ro started to decompensate when we were about two blocks away from the grocery store.  He was getting really tired and hungry, and I'm sure I was pushing him too hard.  When we were right in front of the store, he started calling me a jerk and using the umbrella to shoot air at passing cars.  Eventually, I was able to drag him into the store and ignored him as I grabbed what I needed as soon as we found them.

I'm not really a big proponent of organic products, but I like to go to organic grocery stores when we're traveling because there is a greater amount of variety and they are more likely to have local goods.  We mainly bought breakfast and lunch items from the store including yogurt, granola, milk, bread, peanut butter, and jelly.  I did notice that the store carried beer from Maui brewing and I remembered the happier memories from that Hawaii trip.

I somehow managed to carry Ro and all of the groceries back to the hotel room.  My step counter counted up over 17,000 steps that day!  My feet were pretty sore, and Ro was still bouncing off the walls.  No one really wanted to go out for a full dinner so Ro had cereal with milk and we drove to Gunther's in Curtis Park for ice cream.  I still needed real food and I forgot to buy juice and antacids earlier from the grocery store.  After we got back from ice cream, I ran out from the hotel to the 7-Eleven for juice and antacids, and then picked up drunken noodles from Bangkok@12 Thai.  The Pakistani clerk at the 7-Eleven asked if I was Asian and we talked a bit about how other people were bad at recognizing southeast Asians.  Once he found out I was also a Muslim, he started offering coffee and sodas, but I declined.  Sometimes, I feel like a fraud telling others I'm Muslim because I'm not a very good one.  The noodles from the Thai restaurant were really good, and Ro even ate some though he said he was full from the cereal.  (I'm not sure when he stopped, but he did stop saying, "I'm full of it." when he's done eating.)

On Tuesday, I decided to let Ro watch PBS kids shows while I read more of my book.  He was so into watching tv and playing with the Legos we brought from home that he didn't really want to leave the hotel room.  Eventually, I told him that we needed to leave the room around noon so the maids could clean.

We walked across the street to Capitol Park.  I let Ro lead the way and we moseyed around reading the plaques for the statues and looking at the different plants.  Ro is on a kick where we have to jump over cracks in the sidewalks ("traps") to avoid getting stuck.  I've started going along with the game mostly because I usually do anyways for fun and because it's much easier to get him to go places without having to carry him.  He also has started pretending that his red and gray Columbia jacket is an "inspector's jacket" and refuses to zip it up when we're outside.  He must think it's a trench coat or something.  We also saw the medallions in front of the building and watched the workers set up the outdoor Christmas tree. 

We went inside the Capitol Building and B met us while he was on his lunch break.  I glanced into the rooms and tried to explain them to Ro, but he wasn't too interested.  We went into one room where a docent suggested that we look for all of the bears in the building.  Oddly enough, he was more interested in the case holding the old wooden mast that held the ball on top of the building before the building was remodeled and was replaced by a metal rod.  He wanted to try to get to the top of the building to see the metal ball himself.  Of course we couldn't go, but I was able to talk him into going to the top floor to get as close as we could to the ball.

From there we checked out the whole top floor including both the State Assembly and State Senate chambers.  Of course, neither group was in session, but the rooms were each treated differently.  In the Assembly chamber, there was a docent getting angry at all of the kids who talked loudly and explored all of the windows in the balcony or leaned on the balcony railing.  After a few minutes of sitting down, Ro politely whisper-asked to leave.  In the Senate chamber, we were able to walk and sit wherever we wanted without worrying about someone yelling at us.  Maybe the docent was following around the other groups of rowdy kids and yelling at them wherever they went because we weren't bothered by anyone for the rest of our visit.  B walked down the stairs and left us to go back to his conference while Ro and I went up the grand staircase another two times before going downstairs to check out the County dioramas and checking out the bear in front of the Governor's office.  I was pretty disappointed with Fresno County's diorama.  They really couldn't come up with something better than tv's?  I thought the other ones with figures, pictures, and written facts (like Butte County) were much more imaginative.

We left the Capitol to go to the California Museum.  Ro had fun there because we were able to make pastel rubbings of the State seal and interact with displays.  He really liked hitting the buttons for the soda machines that "dropped" facts about "junk drinks" and obesity.  He also had fun listening to me read the info board about the Channel Islands mammoths (pygmy mammoths).  There were a few parts of the exhibits that took awhile to explain and scared him.  There was a really neat replica of a family's quarters in a Japanese incarceration center that included the dressers, beds, and blanket dividers in the actual size so visitors could walk though and get a real idea of what it would be like to live in one.  I think the idea of interning people scared Ro and he couldn't understand the idea of telling people they had to live somewhere so depressing.  We went upstairs to check out the Unity exhibit about activism and celebrating cultural differences.  Then we went downstairs to eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with the Mickey Mouse statues.

We met up with B after walking around the Capitol a bit more, but B wasn't feeling well.  We still walked down the street for dinner at DeVere's.  I had eaten there last January with friends.  I thought it would be a good, fun dinner, but it didn't pass muster with B and Ro wasn't doing very well with eating out.  Things went downhill after he ripped a corner on his restaurant crayon box.  We left soon after with lots of leftovers.

On Wednesday morning, I didn't learn from Tuesday and let Ro watch cartoons again.  I spread cream cheese on a bagel using a spoon since I didn't have a butter knife.

Me: You know, Ro, I learned how to spread jelly onto bread using a spoon from your daddy.
Ro:  Well, I taught myself how to spread jelly onto bread using the back of the stabby part of a fork.

Stabby part?  I'm also not sure that he's ever spread jelly onto bread before either.

I talked him into leaving just after 10am and we walked to the Sacramento Central Library.  They had a toddler play area set up that Ro enjoyed for a bit.  We read a few books, but Ro didn't want to spend too much time there.  We met with B back at the hotel room for chicken and rice from Frank Fat's.  I then talked Ro into leaving the hotel after lunch with the intention of having him blow off some steam back at the California State Railroad Museum kids' play area.  Ro wasn't as interested in going.  We stopped at Raretea near to the Golden 1 Center.  Ro was happy with a strawberry snow fruit smoothie and I had a Thai tea with boba.  We had fun sitting with me reading and Ro play a Lego Duplo game on my phone.  It was great until the phone game started glitching and he threw a huge fit while there were other patrons in the shop.  This fit included screaming, yelling, and hiding underneath the table stools.  Luckily, most of the patrons were good humored and giggling at Ro -- I think mostly because they could see that I was actively trying to placate the boy rather than ignoring him.  I dragged him back towards the California State Railroad Museum.  We first checked out the giant tent that was decked out to imitate the Polar Express book and movie.  After finding out they didn't have two tickets together left for a train ride, we just went to the museum, played in the kids area again and checked out the information boards for a few trains we didn't check out in depth before.

Ro playing with a "computer" back at the train museum.

Once we were done playing at the Railroad Museum, we walked back to the Polar Express tent.  They had materials out to write letters to Santa.  I think he might get one out of five items on his list.  We took the list to Santa and Ro took a nice photo.  We didn't want to wait in line to buy $30+ for five pictures, and so we left to walk back to meet B at the hotel.  B wanted to eat at Lucca Restaurant for dinner, but Ro decided he wasn't interested in sitting down for dinner.  We were all very tired after the long day.  B and I were really disappointed in Ro.  The only problem with disciplining a kid while traveling is that there is no good place for a time out.  Each nook or cranny in a room is not a time out spot but a new place to play.  B and I instead came up with a better game plan for our last day in Sacramento.

On Thursday, Ro and I woke up and got ready early to gather everything up to take to the car.  B had already gathered up his things together before leaving for the conference that day.  Ro was very patient and helpful during the two trips to take the bags to the car.  We had a false start leaving when I turned in my room key too early and forgot that I needed to use it to leave the hotel parking garage.  The staff was nice when I had to re-park the car and take Ro back to the lobby to get another key to exit the garage.

We drove out to Sutter's Fort because I had remembered having fun there when my fourth grade class was out exploring on a Sacramento trip.  Ro wasn't sure what to make of the place during our visit.  A lot of kids were there on a school trip who got to churn butter, knead bread, core apples, dip candles, wash clothes, play field doctor, and listen to lectures about trapping and traveling by covered wagon.  Ro wasn't very interested in the lectures.  One of the docents let Ro touch one of the finished candles while we were watching the kids dip the candles.  We went up to the bastion and I explained to Ro people use to look out the windows to be able to better see who was coming from that room.

Ro: Why is there a cannon?
Me: So they can shoot cannon balls at people they don't like.
Ro: Why wouldn't they like people visiting?

There were a few questions I didn't answer very well.  Ro was more concerned about the cannons and guns on the property.  Especially after I had to explain how bayonets were and how they were used when he saw one and asked what it was.

Me:  Well, it goes at the end of a rifle.  If a bad guy got too close to shoot, you could stick him with the bayonet.
Ro: What does it mean to "stick" someone?
Me: ...You know.  It means to stab someone.
Ro:  ...I'm not sure I like this place.

After awhile the bread started to bake in the brick over and I realized that I needed food.  Ro was okay with leaving.  He said his favorite part was watching the kids use the apple corer. 

For lunch, we finally made it to Lucca Restaurant.  Ro had spaghetti and I had a salad and mussels with a pear cider.  All was good.  Ro ate by himself for a bit before requesting help twirling spaghetti.  Then all of a sudden he pointed at my chest.

Ro: Ass.
Me: ...Come again?  I don't think I heard you correctly.
Ro: Ass.
Me: (blank)
Ro: You know, ass!  It breaks up food in your stomach!
Me: Ro! That's ACID!

Of course this happens while it's quiet at the restaurant.  If anyone noticed, they were very polite about it.

Ro making silly faces at Ikea.

After lunch, Ro indicated that he would be open to furniture shopping, and so we headed to Ikea in West Sacramento.  I was a little worried that B would think we were going crazy, but I held us to buying two night stands, a bench/shoe rack, a floor lamp, tea lights, and a dish scrubbing brush.  I actually only bought the dish scrubbing brush because it was at the beginning of the marketplace road and I knew Ro would stop asking for more stuff if he was holding something.  I had anticipated B not being out of the conference for another few hours and so before even picking out what we wanted, we walked through the whole showroom a few times.  I love shopping at Ikea and it was really fun in the middle of a Thursday because the store was dead. 

We packed all the furniture into the car and walked back inside the store to head to the cafeteria.  Ro wasn't hungry, but he was thirsty.  I mainly wanted dessert.  We ordered chocolate cake, pear cider, and milk and ate/drank everything while watching shows on my phone using the store's wifi. 

B called to let us know he was done an hour early, and so Ro and I packed up pretty quick.  Google maps said the quickest way back to the hotel was a drawbridge.  That was an adventure and a neat sight.  The rest of the ride home was pretty uneventful, but Ro consented to wearing a diaper before falling asleep on the way home. Win!