Travel the world

Hot Town Summer In (Sac) City

I joined my cousins Kat and Kim to go on a road trip to Sacramento this morning to meet up with my other cousins, Sandra and Juliet, and holy blazes, was it ever scorching hot!

Frankly, I don’t know how I got through today. I got sunburnt, heat exhaustion and was poked fun at as I ran from limited shade to limited shade. Heck, I even bought a fold up fan to fan myself all day.

I gave neither thought nor hoot about what other people may have thought as they passed by me, as I fanned myself sometimes furiously to keep the flushing of my face at bay or in a feeble attempt to keep the sun off my face. I even entertained buying an umbrella, for Pete’s sake.

After the 1.5 hour drive down to Sac City (yup, that just opens up to all sorts of teasing to the inhabitants of Sacramento), we met up with our cousins and drove downtown into old Sacramento, a part of town where it looks like you’re transported into time; the gold rush western saloon kind.

I half imagined a wild west gun fight, barmaids and can can girls as well as a stage coach riding into town. Oh, and did I mention, that the nickname for old Sacramento is Old Sac?

What is it about traveling that we would do things we’d never do in our own hometown? The cousins and I went to the Sacramento state fair. Identical to Pacific National Exhibition in Vancouver, I’m sure every city in Canada and US has one of these summer expos, with rides, food stands, petting zoos and vendors selling the shammy, glass & tile cutters and the pink stuff cleaning product.

I haven’t gone to the PNE since I was in my early 20s, but as a couple of cousins are in the early 20s, I guess this would be an all too entirely appropriate event on a seeringly scorching summer day. As well, Kat brought along her 2 kidlets, age 4 and 7 – the perfect audience for the kiddie rides and tooth rotting sugary sweets.

Having loved going on rides most of my teenage years, I couldn’t bring myself to sit on a ride, or even the bumper cars – that’s how intolerant I was about the heat. But I did buck up enough to take some very awesome pictures of the kiddies enjoying themselves and that made me smile ear to ear. That, and the soft served ice cream, churro and dutch style funnel cake covered with icing sugar I indulged in.

After dinner at an air-conditioned Chinese seafood restaurant, we drove back to San Francisco, where I met up with Peggy at the hotel. We hoofed it to Mel’s Drive-In, a 50s themed diner, with mini jukeboxes at the booths lined up against the walls that you can make your selection of songs to play. I half expected Buddy Holly to wait on us like in Pulp Fiction. And yes, there was a $5 milkshake on the menu! We chowed down on strawberry milk shake, double cream cheese cake with strawberry topping and a side of onion rings, to boot. It was midnight satisfaction!

We sang along at our booths to Otis Redding’s Try a Little Tenderness, Elvis Presley’s Suspicious Minds and Frankie Valli’s Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You, took a gazillion pictures and pestered our waiter to be an accomplice in that task and had the guys in the next booth cheering us on, while the Mel’s Drive-In staff looked at us bemused, even after we paid the bill and left.