<-- Day 33 - Apr. 21st: Tom, Paty, Sparky, Bill, Lucy, Snoopy, Charlie, Linus, and More | OVERVIEW | Day 35 - Apr. 23rd: Over the Sierras -->
During the spring of 2013 my son Karson visited Old Town Sacramento and said it was a great area of the city. Ann and I didn't know for sure what to expect when we arrived there today, but we came away pleasantly surprised.
We began the day at the California Auto Museum located just a little south of the Old Town Sacramento area. Much of the museum's collection came from Edward Towe, a Montana banker who assembled a large collection of Fords in Deer Lodge, Montana (some of his collection is still there at the Montana Auto Museum). That explains why many of the early vehicles and artifacts are related to Ford.
I felt like the museum started strong, with some good explanations and backgrounds. The exhibit is organized on a timeline, starting with some very early Fords.
This is a good display of how Camp Curry at Yosemite began. It started as a tent camp in 1899 by David and Jennie Curry
The demonstration of how/why a ring and pinion developed was particularly well done. There was a video (see below the picture of the R&P machine) of the R&P and played above a hands-on example that people could spin by hand. Well done!
As we wandered, more cars from different manufactures were added until rows of cars over took the story of the automobile. It's as if the curators didn't know what to do after about 1930, so they lined up some cars. Whatever the reason, the story telling declined for the remainder of the visit.
Still, there are plenty of cars (few trucks) and a couple jeeps to be seen. Here's a 1943 Ford GPW. Note the lack of context. In fact, like many museum's vehicles, the jeep is placed in a space by itself without background. At least it was a nice jeep with lots of F-stamps:
This wagon was placed in even stranger place. Not sure how it fits in here, except that there is some space to place it there.
Once we were done looking at the cars, we stopped by the gift shop. There were some cool vintage t-shirts with Buick and truck logos, but they were sold out of any size that would fit me.
After the museum we drove to the center of Old Town Sacramento, parked and spent several hours exploring the area. We started with some food (some pricy, but yummy bbq) and then visited the highly regarded California State Railroad Museum. It didn't disappoint.
Having seen quite a few museums over the past two years, I've formed some strong thoughts on the use of large and small spaces as part of the story telling process. For example, the California Auto Museum has a large warehouse feel with some low dividing walls between areas, but there's not much of an attempt to change the sense of space. In contrast, the Railroad museum begins with a small display in front near at box office, which leads to a small tunnel. As you exit the tunnel, a huge, dramatic space opens up that is delightfully overwhelming. The huge space begins the California railroad experience at a natural starting point: The Transcontinental Railroad (an aside: My kids loved 'Ten Mile Day', a book that I picked up years ago at Golden Spike National Monument).
Following that display, there are a series of engines and cars that people can explore in different ways.
The old sleeper car was our favorite. It still looked comfortable enough that we were ready to grab a bunk and take a trip. Our photo of it didn't turn out though :-(.
Ann and I spent a couple hours at the Railroad museum and thoroughly enjoyed it. If there's one area I'd add, it would be more information about the interplay between trains and national parks. National park development was encouraged by the railroads and the companies advertised travel to national parks nationally and internationally. Given the existence of Yosemite, there's a good California story here. This article provides some information on the subject.
By late afternoon we were getting tired, so rather than visit some of the other museums, we walked around old town a little bit.
Ann and I both agreed that our experience in downtown Sacramento and Old Town Sacramento was a wonderful surprise. We look forward to a future visit where we can visit more of the area.
Tomorrow we'll go to Placerville and then on to Reno for a couple nights. We'd plan to stop in South Tahoe, but a cold front has moved through, so we'll hunker down in Reno for a few days and let the weather pass through.
<-- Day 33 - Apr. 21st: Tom, Paty, Sparky, Bill, Lucy, Snoopy, Charlie, Linus, and More | OVERVIEW | Day 35 - Apr. 23rd: Over the Sierras -->
12 Comments
Leave a Reply