Daisys' Sacramento: Haggin Oaks Park

This weekend's Mummy-and-Daisy jaunt was to a park in Rancho Cordova, not far from where we live. Despite not having a stellar reputation as a residential city, RC has a surprising number of large and lovely parks. It also has a great location, hugging the American River and several miles of it's bike trails, but that's another adventure for another time.



It was on the awesome new blog I found, Sacramento Sidetracks, that I learned about the Petting Barn and Steam Train at Haggin Oaks Park. The Barn is open throughout the summer on weekends and certain weekdays and is run by a local Girl Guide troupe. The Steam Train rides are part of the Sacramento Valley Live Steamers Railroad Museum.



Sadly, the trains only run on certain weekends and this wasn't one of them, so we contented ourselves with petting donkeys and bunnies, being frightened by jumping froggies and gobbling turkeys, and getting eyed-up by a very wiley looking goose.















And then, after almost drowning in the lake and being hit in the head by a flying baseball, we head back to the car, via a couple of side-trips to grab, throw, and eat some dirt. This was, after all, a park visit and wouldn't have been complete without it.






You can see all the pics by clicking here.

Or, to learn more about Daisy's "fun" weekend, click here.

Daisy's Sacramento: Coloma

This weekend Daisy, Mum, Dad, and I went on a little excursion to a small town in the foothills that has a large claim to fame: Coloma. You see, this one stop-light city was the place where, back in 1848, gold was first discovered, and the infamous California Gold Rush began.


Sutter's Mill, the exact spot where the shiny stuff was found. 

Despite its rather important place in California's history, the town and State Historic Park is somewhat low-key and lacking the dynamism of the event itself (probably due to chronic underfunding.) The three times I have been there, once in Spring, once in Fall, and now in the Summer, there have not been more than a handful of people milling around the dusty exhibits.


The sleepy atmosphere suited us, however, as it was scorching hot out and it meant that Daisy had the opportunity to dash around, unhindered.


Daisy, enjoying the miniature scenes in the museum.






Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park. Impressive, huh?



"Oh, look, Daisy! It's an... um... wooden shack."



"So, let's see....What's this thing supposed to be?"



The view up the barrel of a gun.



Daisy, Mummy, and Nanny, gold-panning. Cheaper than a lottery ticket but a tad more hard work.


Despite being generally underwhelmed by the park itself, we had a great time milling around. The drive to Coloma, up historic California Highway 49, is lovely - all hills, trees, twists, and turns - and emerging from around the side of a cliff and under the Foresthill Bridge, and right at the confluence of the north and south forks of the American River, never fails to take my breath away.


We stopped for frozen yogurt in Auburn, where Hubby pretty much grew up, and then drove back home down Auburn-Folsom Road, enjoying the blazing sunshine from inside our air conditioned car.


You can see all the photos here.

Daisy's Sacramento: July 24 2010

Cough and cold be damned! Ms. Daisy and I were not going to be stopped by a few sniffles from making this weekend the first in our quest for world domination. Ok, well, let's reel that back a bit and say just Sacramento domination.

(If you've no idea what I'm talking about, then you're majorly CAPTURED. You missed a post, dear friend. Catch up and read more often!)

I had originally planned to drive us to midtown Sacramento for the new "Midtown Bazaar." Well, I executed that plan and it was bunk. One small parking lot of uninspiring jewelry and t-shirt vendors. Poor Sacraghetto tries so hard to have these little community/cultural shindigs but seems to come up short every time. Enough of that, though: one of the reasons for this new photo project was to stop bagging on Sacramento and start finding some interesting stuf... from Daisy's perspecitve.

It started off rocky, I don't mind telling you. Trying to find something for a sick, cranky toddler to engage with on a fairly dead mid-town street on a Saturday morning, was hard. We walked blocks and I took some pictures here and there, me trying desperately to ignore some folks who looked at me strangely. Some even stopped their conversation to stare at me as if I was being rude! And no, I wasn't taking pictures of them just near them. After said blocks, we ended up at Starbucks. I was thirsty and hot and missy was cranky, plus I needed a distraction to get a binky out of her mouth since she doesn't interact with her environment when she has the darned thing in.

After Starbucks, an apple juice and some bread with mayonnaise (hey, you do what you got to do), Daisy started to lean out of her stroller and point at things. That's when I grabbed my camera and began snapping.

So, artistically or not, these are the things that Daisy found interesting today on J street in Midtown Sacramento...

Fishy Tiles... on the side of the OfficeMax building, of all places









A Tattoo Parlor Building and Sign
(SNAKES AND TATTOOS!? This does not bode well!!!!!)















"Man!" Which she would yell at any man she saw within 50 feet
Again, not liking the trends here. Tattoos, snakes, men...





Herself, in reflection.
Oh, gawd... the list is not flattering, is it?





And a few other random things along the way...

Tiles...


A pole smothered in flyers, old and new...


A colorful booth of kids' clothes...


Sacramento Memorial Auditorium


Murals on the The Bread Store


Everything was either taken from Daisy's view-point (stroller-level) and/or because she showed an interest in it. Much of it required shooting on-the-go because, every time I stopped, Missy started thumping her feet agains the stroller.

You can see the whole set here

A new photo project

What? You say! Another one? What happened to the old one : Photo A Day?

Well, it has not been totally abandoned. Some days there is stuff to take photos of and some days there is not. Some days there is time to take the photo, transfer it to my PC, upload it to Flickr, and then blog about it and some days there is not. So, somedays there will be  a photo and somedays there will not. Maybe I should rename it my "Someday photo project". Ahem.

No, this photo project has been born out of a couple of different motivations. The first is to find something to do on weekends that gets me and Daisy out of the house, without shopping or eating ($$). The second is to attempt to remind myself that there are some endearing qualities about the area I live in, Sacramento.

Hence, my new photo project is going to be: "Daisy's Sacramento"

I'm going to find interesting - either visually, historically, or otherwise - places or sights in the Sacramento region and go-forth to photograph them from Daisy's perspective - as in whatever interests her about them (if anything) and from 30" off the ground.

I'm thinking I will focus mostly on the historical because, the whole time I was living in the Orange County area, all I did was bitch about how there was no history. The historical downtowns and older buildings were one of the things I thought I would like about this area, so now I need to put my camera where my mouth is. However, every week won't be a history lesson. We'll see where life takes us.

Not that I'm promising something every week, either. It's a project, not a homework assignment and I don't want to turn it into a chore. It's supposed to be fun and practice.

Oh, and if you live locally and have ideas about places to go, please comment or email me. Or if you live out of the area and would like to know something more about the area, that would be great to know too. Although the project is about me, it would be nice if it also entertained YOU!

The great thing about this new project is that I don't have to try and separate the time I spend with Daisy and the pictures I take of her, from my photography practice. This way I get to kill two birds with one stone, thereby substantially increasing the likelihood that I'll do it.