how's my drinking?

For no apparent reason we had in our heads that Sacramento was a mid-size town with a small-town mentality.  an idea that really makes no sense when you remember its California’s capital!  And its mentality is NOT small-town.  Its a pretty cosmo place of all classes; as well as some well preserved buildings dating back to the late 1800’s.

And it has 3 microbreweries, of which two were visited by us!

We stayed in a 3* hotel near downtown, which we got on Hotwire.com for cheaper than the local hostels or campsites!  And they ran a free shuttle bus into town at our request!  Liked that bit, esp as it dropped off at the Greyhound station within 13mins!

Friday night  we went to the Pyramid BrewPub on K Street, where we were given a free tour and tasting.  Two opposites here:  The tour was short and not that indepth – the tasting was very comprehensive and thorough!! 

One of the good things about sitting at the bar is you inevitably get chatting

Us with darin & John

 to random people.  We met Darin & John – taking a 2-day break from the wives! – who were keen on the local brews; and we went from there to the Sacramento’s Music in the Park event of free live bands.  We’re all pretty sure that the bands were good, but we were waylaid by the ‘beer tent’  (less Tent, more Stall!)

Saturday earned us a fairly decent lie-in, so having forfieted breakfast -

Nice-house, not Whitehouse!

 Continental, so therefore not truely a breakfast!! – and we decided to walk around the Old Town, the Waterfront and the Capitol Hill areas.  All very beautiful, esp Capitol Hill part as its city admin building is very ‘presidential’; so from there we ventured to the downtown mall which is home to the River City Brewing Co.!  More good local beer repleat with good 1/2lb burger!  We had dinner at Joe’s Crab Shack…a chain, but good fun and good value seafood.

Sun-day was spent on the Greyhound to San Fran (2.5hrs) where we met up with Robin.  That’s today already!!    Flying at 9pm local tomorrow (Monday) arriving in Auckland in the wee hours on Wednesday.