Sacramento Trip, Part 1

This past weekend I flew to Sacramento for the first ever Markeroni Unconvention. It was a wonderful excuse to get some CA sun, meet some good blog friends, and learn some California history all at the same time. The plan was simple – fly into Sacramento Thursday night, meet up with my Markeroni friends (and a few bookcrossers thrown in for good measure) Friday morning, and spend the next few days exploring the Capitol, Old Sacramento, etc. I’d fly back home Monday morning.

For the most part, the plan went well, although my flights out were a little awry. Everything should’ve been fine, but then my flight from Detroit to Minneapolis waited briefly for a bunch of connecting passengers. Then, since there were so many, we waited for their bags too. Then the plane needed to be de-iced. By the time we got out, we were an hour and a half delayed. When we landed, we taxied past the plane I was supposed to be on to Sacramento. It was still at the gate when we passed it, but by the time we got to ours, it had left. Fortunately, Northwest handled the situation much better than Delta handled my last flight disaster, so that when I exited the plane, I had new flight plans that left early Friday morning (on a different airline no less), a hotel voucher for the night, and a $25 discount coupon for my next flight. I was impressed. At any rate, I made it to Sacramento without further incident, and was still the first arrival to meet Linda at the designated coffee shop.

Once we (all 4 of us) met up, we grabbed some lunch and headed to the Sutter’s Fort area. We visited the State Indian Musuem (I never knew anything about the tribes that inhabited California before), and then went to the Fort. Sutter was one of the first settlers in the area, and founded the local fort that supplied the coming pioneers. (Looks just like the ones in Oregon Trail!) While building a sawmill, one of the carpenters working for him discovered gold, starting the infamous gold rush. Given my current hobbies, I was particuarly intrigued by the weaving factory he had in his fort:

There were some gorgeous trees outside of the fort, that contrasted beautifully with the blue sky:

And it couldn’t be a Markeroni gathering without a historical marker and our mascots:

After exploring the fort, we watched a little boy chase some ducks by the pond, and while the rest of the crew headed to dinner, I headed to the hotel early. I was quite sleepy; in order to catch my morning flight, I realized I got up at the equivalent of 1:30 AM California time. I spent a lot of time in my bed that night, catching up on the missed sleep.