Llywindatravels 2025

Food and Culture in Sacramento

In the opening photo above, you should notice the tall buildings of the business district of Sacramento, the low, gray bulk of the Crocker Museum in the trees along the far bank of the river, and the rider on the jet ski who was swirling up and down the river as we watched. There’s Sacramento for you, some of everything.

Food

Over my 2 1/2 weeks in Sacramento, I had a number of very pleasant and very good meals. We looked for restaurants near our hotel, starting with Origami Asian Grill. The ramen was excellent. I wondered how it would be–the large neon on the front of the restaurant says “best fried chicken”. (I thought we were in the wrong place.) On our way back to the car, we walked by One Speed and decided to go there the next evening. We had delicious pasta, though they are known for pizza.

Two days before Jonathan went into the hospital for surgery, we splurged on dinner at Ella, with its Michelin star. It was pricey, but the duck liver mousse was outstanding, and everything else was delicious.

While Jonathan was in the hospital recovering, I reconnected with a woman I knew from college. We went to Bacon and Butter, which serves excellent breakfast fare. I went wild with waffles and peaches. Suzy also introduced me to the prettiest eatery in Sacramento, the Tower Cafe, just outside the Tower Cinema. (The cafe was the original drugstore where Tower Records began.) Outdoor tables are set in a garden full of tall trees and shrubs, wonderfully cool on all but the hottest days in Sacramento. We had good chile rellenos for lunch. I’d go back there any time.

I had a chance to make brief visits to two of the many farmer’s markets in Sacramento. I began with the Oak Park market, small and friendly, where I bought pumpkin spiced pound cake and plums. Later the same Saturday, I went to the Midtown Farmers Market that extends outward several blocks in each direction from 20th and K Sts., just north of the State Capitol complex. I could have spent much more time at this market, there were all kinds of vendors from fruit (mostly Asian pears, plums, and grapes), vegetables (tomatoes, squash, and early fall produce) to food, beverages, and crafts.

I also squeezed in a trip to one of Sacramento’s favorite ice cream parlors, Gunther’s, where they have a lot of uncommon flavors. After a lot of deliberation, I tried black walnut and orange chocolate, both delicious. If I weren’t out of time, I’d go back for the two seasonal flavors for October, pumpkin and licorice!

Culture

I dabbled in a bit of culture, as well. Suzy, her daughter Molly, and I, made a visit to the Crocker Museum, which has grown very large. There is so much interesting art that it was clear a single visit was not nearly long enough to explore it all. In the gift shop I found a postcard of Pies, Pies, Pies by native son of Sacramento, Wayne Thiebaud, and beautiful notecards featuring California birds by Molly Hashimoto.

Suzy, Molly, and I then went on an adventure out of Atlas Obscura. For those of you not familiar with it, AtlasObscura.com keeps lists of unusual sights in many different locations. It provides a source of brief visits along any given route of travel, or day trips from any place you happen to be. There is a substantial list for Sacramento, and we chose one that Suzy hadn’t known about, the sculpture called Subtile, installed on the bank of the river in West Sacramento in 2017. By Czech artist Federico Diaz, the work is a large armature covered with small, silver-toned polished disks that move in the wind. The piece is shaped vaguely like a group of shrubs or trees, and shimmers like wind through tree branches.

I wanted to see the shore of the river, so we slithered down the embankment to find that the river’s edge is rather plain. However, looking back up, the sculpture was particularly fine against the blue sky. The good photos repaid us a bit for the struggle to climb back up the embankment.

[The video above is best with your volume turned down or off]

Our visit to Sacramento was intended to be very focused on medical issues. I didn’t realize I’d be here long enough to see a bit of the city and start to find my way around. I am grateful to Suzy Underwood for taking so much time out of her schedule to show me around and share in some of these adventures while Jonathan was in the hospital.

Jonathan and I were lucky to be leaving Sacramento on Oct. 10, despite the many things still to see. All the hotels were booked solid and have been for 6 months! It’s Aftershock, a four day music festival. The reception staff at our hotel said we were smart to be leaving before the traffic gets really bad. I looked up the festival, https://aftershockfestival.com/

Not my thing, but I did recognize a number of the bands playing. I also noticed an influx of green and purple haired, tour tshirt-wearing people the morning we checked out.

I’m sure they’ll have their own great visit to Sacramento.

Historic Sacramento

Sacramento would be a lovely place to live if only they could do something about the weather. It’s October, yet the late afternoon temperature has hit 100 degrees about half of our days here. People quickly learn to get out early and finish walking the dog, taking a stroll, jogging (if they must), because by 10:30 am it’s pretty hot outside. The heat keeps rising, too, so that between 4 and 5 pm, it is often still well over 90, and I can say from recent experience that is not a good time to try and walk anywhere. My advice is to visit Sacramento between November and May.

Apart from the heat, the city has a lot going for it. The Sacramento river flows alongside downtown, and was important for transportation of people and goods via big river steamboats from the 1800s through the 1930s. Old photos show bustling wharves with ships moving in and out.

The paddle wheel ship on the far right is now a hotel.

A broad, paved walk along the river includes plaques inscribed with quotes from Wind in the Willows about river life along with informational pieces.

Today, Old Sacramento covers just a few blocks adjacent to the river. Historic storefronts and brick streets give a glimpse into the past, as does the Railroad Museum.

Spanning the river from one corner of Old Sacramento to West Sacramento is a beautiful and historic bridge. A vertical lift bridge, it can be raised to allow boats to pass underneath. The center section can be raised 100 ft. above the high water mark. Built in 1934, the distinctive style is Streamline Moderne (I love that name!), and though the color of the bridge is hotly debated each time it’s redone, the current gold color shimmers in the afternoon sun.

Old Sacramento is at one end of the Capitol Mall, and the iconic state Capitol Building is at the other. On a different day, I visited the State Capitol Museum with my friend Suzy. Rooms on the main floor have been renovated as period examples of state government offices. They show off the gorgeous woodwork, mosaics, and rather elementary office machinery from the turn of the 20th century.

As a resident of Eureka, I was pleased to see the motto of California, “Eureka,” shown prominently in the Capitol.

(L-R): Restored woodwork, the Capitol dome, the Great Seal of the State of California.

Last but not least, we looked at the official portraits of past governors of California. These range from the wing collars and black suits of the late 19th and early 20th century, right up to…..Jerry Brown. His is the only official portrait not painted in a traditional style. I give him high marks for choosing something really different, but that is actually a reasonable likeness.

Official Portraits of CA governors (L-R): James Gillett, Pat Brown [father of=], Jerry Brown and visitors.

Having toured the historic portion of the capitol, we exited and found ourselves by a figure of a Miwok man. The Miwok are one of the many indigenous groups in California. This is not everyday clothing, this is a man dressed for a dance or ceremony, wearing a distinctive headdress.

The Capitol building is the eye of a storm for the next few years. We were able to visit, but a lot of the area is fenced off as a substantial new office complex is constructed onto the rear of the capitol building. It will increase the space available for offices without taking back the beautifully restored historic rooms. With the need for earthquake-resistant construction, it sounds like the work will be underway for 5-7 years. In the meantime, the machinery of the state goes on around the machinery of construction.

Clocker’s Corner

Santa Anita morning workout (Photo by Lynn Ruane Tuttle)

I didn’t think about horses when we were invited to meet up for breakfast the morning after my nephew’s wedding. I was unaware that it is possible to stroll from the Le Meridien Hotel to the track at Santa Anita, either. I wasn’t staying at the wedding hotel, so I followed GoogleMaps to Clocker’s Corner, but found myself off the roads shown by Google, in the middle of a parking area at the racetrack with a big gate and a guard.

Pulling up, I asked if Clocker’s Corner was nearby, and surprisingly, the guy gestured forward, saying, “Park anywhere, it’s around that fence.” So we did.

I had wondered why my brother emphasized meeting at 9 am. “They close at ten!” he said. I knew he must be mistaken, because what coffee shop closes at ten am? We walked around the indicated fence and found ourselves right alongside the racetrack at Santa Anita. Clocker’s Corner is exactly what its name indicates, a place where you can drink coffee, get a bite, and time horses during their morning workouts. The stand closes at ten because all the workouts are over by then.

It was a real pleasure to see such beautiful horses up close, and to watch them run past. I regretted not arriving earlier to see more. If you are in Pasadena, or anywhere near the Santa Anita track, find out if Clocker’s Corner is open, and be sure to get there early!

How to Throw a Wedding

My nephew Cy and his fiancee Yessenia got married in the Los Angeles area over this past weekend. It was a small wedding, about 60 guests. The families didn’t know each other well. It could have been a quiet, polite, and only slightly dutiful wedding, yet few of us have ever been to such a lovely ceremony followed by an all-out rock-and-roll party of a reception. What a time we had!

Pre-Wedding Festivities

I arrived around midday on Friday, and by the time I was settled, it was time to head to Pasadena for the barbecue and pool party hosted by my daughter Amanda and her husband Jim, held at his mother’s home in Pasadena. It’s a lovely big house that’s in a neighborhood popular with TV producers, very scenic.

Every time the dogs barked, a new family swung through the gate into the back yard. It’s been a few years since we had a family wedding, so there were new children, new dogs, and lots of hugs. Those who could brought food or beverages, and there was plenty for an end of summer barbecue. The weather has been hot in Los Angeles, yet we had a relatively mild afternoon, just warm enough to swim. Most of the cousins, the generation of the groom, came to the wedding, reviving a periodic get-together the dozen or so of them call “Cousin-Palooza.” Those in the wedding party had to leave early in order to get to the rehearsal, while the rest of us stayed on into the late afternoon.

At 8 pm, while the wedding party was still rehearsing, guests were invited to meet in the lobby bar of the Le Meridien, the designated wedding hotel, to meet up with others who came to town for the event. The groom’s family included friends going back as far as elementary school (the best man), high school, and college. There were Creamer aunts and uncles, Greer aunts and uncles, and more cousins. We’ve all met before at funerals and weddings, and lubricated by the generous distribution of drink tickets, the very nice cocktail menu at the Le Meridien, and good company, conversation grew from polite chatter to a roar. A few children braved the celebration with their parents, while adults caught up with family they hadn’t seen for a while. No one made plans for the next day, we all intended to rest before the wedding ceremony. …

I did not stay until the crowd broke up. By the time the wedding party arrived, I was winding down, but I understand the fun continued for quite a while.

The Wedding Ceremony

Yessenia and Cy’s ceremony was held at non-denominational The Santa Anita Church, a beautiful setting. Everyone took photos of everyone before the service began.

L: Father of the groom’s family (Creamer) R: Mother of the Groom’s family (Greer)

I sent the photo of my sisters and brother and I to our mom. At 99, with low vision, mom couldn’t make the trip west, but stayed glued to her zoom screen during the ceremony thanks to the groom’s brother Terry who set it all up. Grandma sent a personal message to the bride and groom.

At the Santa Anita Church, a lovely stained glass window behind the altar looks like feathers or leaves. The officiant led a truly non-denominational ceremony that stressed commitment and kindness. There was no homily, but good advice for us all in the words exchanged by the bride and groom. The young couple chose simple vows, an exchange of roses, and lighting candles as symbols of their shared future. It made a unique and moving wedding.

Reception

The reception that followed the wedding was held in the function room of Raffi’s Catering, not far from the church. The space was just right for our group, and had the bonus of being next door to the kitchen, so the Mediterranean themed food arrived fresh and hot.

The bride and groom arrived, looking as happy as they could possibly be. There were toasts with anecdotes of Cy and Yessenia in earlier days.

The food was delicious, and the people were delightful. Everyone had a chance to relax after the wedding and to move around a bit chatting with others. The next big moment was when the DJ began playing music. The bride and groom had their first dance. There was a mother-son dance, and a father-daughter dance. Next they broke out a few bars of Grandma Jeanne singing “Always” at a previous wedding that segued into Frank Sinatra finishing out the song. It was quite romantic. After that came the rock and roll dance party favorites, and before long, everyone in the room was dancing, from 7 year old Julianne to the over-70 crowd of aunts and uncles (Julianne put us all to shame, of course).

When were you at a wedding when no one was sitting at the tables because we were all on the dance floor? It was as much fun as anything you can imagine.

The groom’s family has a tradition of dancing and singing to “Dancing Queen,” led by the bride and groom standing on chairs. This reception was no exception. A really fun time was had by all. You could call it happy pandemonium. I asked my brother how he managed to stay on his feet and dancing for almost every minute of the reception. Very seriously, he said, “Moments like these don’t come along very often. You have to enjoy it.”

Local Color: The Eureka Street Art Festival

This week, the Eureka Street Art Festival has painters in place at fifteen localities around town, working on new murals. We spent the afternoon driving around town looking at most of the murals indicated on the map for the event.

Map of street art locations for 2024 (By Jenna Catsos, one of the artists, and one of the organizers)

Painters have through the weekend to complete their work, and as a result, there were people at work on most of the sites we visited, and the murals were well along toward completion.

https://www.eurekastreetartfestival.com/about

We started at the furthest outlier in terms of location, Lima’s Pharmacy, where a mini festival celebrating the mural was underway. Balloons, a bouncy castle, food and drink, and free pens, all made it a fun stop. The mural depicts medicinal plants in keeping with the pharmacy theme. Every mural has a marker naming the artist and providing a short bio.

Our next stop was a bit harder to find, since our map was schematic, without most street names. We found it on a section of wall curving down S Street beside a middle school. Jose Moreno and his team were busy painting.

The Journey of Quetzalcoatl (El Viaje de Quetzalcoatl)

We headed back into Eureka and stopped at the Eureka Municipal Auditorium, where Melitta Jackson was finishing up for the day. Her mural depicts animals that are coming back into this area, the otter and the condor. The title, “Chpaana’r,” means “Stay a Long Time,” in Yurok. Her sponsor is a suicide prevention group.

Our next stop was the Alder Grove Charter School, where a block-long wall was being turned into, “The Lost Pages.” We couldn’t find it, despite driving around the block and up and down neighboring streets. The school isn’t indicated on Google Maps. The schematic map of the mural sites was good, but in the end we moved on. The next morning, on our way to the Farmer’s Market, we drove right by it, a block long and brightly colored, with a painter working from a cherry-picker. It would have been hard to miss. It was nice to see it in the end.

Several more murals were being painted in the downtown area.

The Decodance mural on the Eureka Theater was fun to examine, as we tried to identify the people and the artwork depicted in each panel. The mural of Billie Holiday on the Opera Alley Bistro was a beautiful piece.

The mural at the far end of Opera Alley was still underway, but I went by two days later and saw the finished version.

Some of the other murals were much smaller. The Clark Historical Museum mural, The Condor Returns, took us a minute to find because we’d just stopped at a few murals that took up the side of a building, and it was painted on a door. The museum is made of stone, and doesn’t have a surface for a mural other than the door.

The Humboldt Aquatic Center had three mural panels painted that show rowing, the principal activity at the center. These were attractive, but gated off from visitors and more difficult to see than the others we visited during the afternoon.

While we were looking for this year’s murals we came across a few impressive works from previous years. Many are marked with the year they were created and ESAF, Eureka Street Art Festival.

The goal of the festival has been to do something creative and uplifting for the city of Eureka. I’d say they succeeded.

Two Weeks in Paris

I love Paris. Right now we’re enjoying two solid weeks of Paris sights, boat rides, parades, and fun. We’re watching the Olympic Summer Games, 2024.

A few weeks ago, we decided that we wanted to see a lot of the Olympic events, and found that a subscription to Peacock+ would get us access to all sports, exactly what we wanted. We like to see sports that are not normally on TV.

As happy retirees, we were able to watch the Olympic Games Opening Ceremony live, midday our time, when it was evening in Paris. Most of what we saw took place in a downpour. We admired the streetstyle dancers kicking through fountains, making their most energetic moves look fun despite the rain. The long line of cancan dancers had beautiful costumes, but seemed a bit out of their element out in the elements.

The singer Axelle Saint-Cirel appepared to emulate the French icon “Marianne” standing atop the Grand Palais looked brave and wet. We admired her grit.

All the entertainment filled the time it took for boats of all sizes to carry all the national Olympic teams down the Seine. Each group wore distinctive outfits, whether their delegation included a small group (Mongolia, 2) or many (Mexico, 107). The rain appeared irrelevant to those floating in the boats and watching from the shore.

Since the games have gotten underway, we’ve watched amazing feats of skill. I didn’t know there was team handball, using a ball the size of a small cantaloupe, that allows running with the ball and a bit of tackling (I think). The canoe slalom was exciting, too, as we watched women paddling like mad through roiling water. Judo is difficult to understand. Many of the sports we watch have rules that aren’t apparent to the uninitiated.

Air gun shooting is new to me. The guns have barrels about a foot long, and shoot small pellets. Women from Korea appear to be the dominant players. It was fascinating to see some of the elaborate effects the shooters try, with eye patches and tiny blinders, and to see how carefully they aim.

All the action doesn’t take place in Paris, either. We watched windsurfers waiting for a breeze in Marseille, and surfers blasting through the waves in Tahiti.

We’re not missing out on the popular events. Swimming is shown during prime time at night in the US, and we watched the heavily hyped relay events. We’ll return every evening to see what is held for the largest US audience.

Every day will be another adventure. We’re looking forward to seeing more aerial views of Paris and environs while we chase esoteric sports around the Olympic venues. All I need to make this perfect would be a beautiful, freshly baked flaky croissant.

The Sweetness of Spring

We haven’t traveled this year, and though I was disappointed at first, I have made peace with staying home. Though best known for marijuana cultivation, Humboldt County’s climate is perfect for flowers. Not only do blossoms appear early in February, they continue through June.

I am amazed by the range of flowers that grow profusely here. As soon as we felt the first few mild days, I began to smell jasmine in the air, and noticed that many fences have jasmine growing on them. Rhododendrons are another species that does well in the Pacific Northwest, and that includes northern California. We have all colors from pale pink and lavender, yellow, peach, and coral through magenta and deep purple. Rhododendron bushes can grow ten feet tall with ease and during the spring they can be thickly covered with flowers. They are spectacular.

Flowering trees are one of the next steps in the progression of spring. First come the white apple blossoms, then pink crabapples, lavender plum blossoms, dogwoods, and flowering trees that I don’t recognize with clusters of pom-pom like pink flowers. I have stopped the car to take pictures as I drive around town. Many trees are postcard perfect at the height of their bloom.

In the Midwest, lilacs are a signature flower of late spring, and their scent is everywhere. In Eureka, lilacs barely poke their stems out of hedges and side yards, overwhelmed by huge bushes of California fuchsia, purple and white wisteria, and flowering bushes. There is the princess flower, a shrub covered in deep purple flowers that is hardy and easy to grow, and there are other flowering shrubs covered with tiny blue, white, or pink flowers.

Clockwise from upper left: Wisteria, California fuschia, princess flower, rose, shasta daisies, and ? (snapdragons?).

Even unmown lawns are lovely here, sprouting tiny yellow and pink flowers.

All kinds of bulbs grow well here, and daffodils come up in early March, followed by tulips. Later in the summer, we’ll start to see dahlias, grown by every plant fancier in the region. There are so many shapes and colors that no one could have a garden that included all of them. The county fair horticulture display is always full of gorgeous dahlias.

As I walk around the neighborhood, I admire the number of homes with beautiful plants, colorful flowers and shrubs, flowering trees, and plantings of bright orange California poppies. There are other poppies, too, yellow, red-orange, deep red, purple, even blue, the Himalayan poppy. I am always learning something new about the richness of my current home.

Poppies

I was reminded of flowers by the kites in the air, too, during last weekend’s Kite Festival.

Eureka’s Rhododendron Parade

Like the Pacific Northwest, the Eureka area has climate particularly friendly to cultivation of the rhododendron family of flowering bushes–they include azaleas and a lot of varieties of “rhodys” of all sizes. There is a Rhododendron Society, and an annual Rhododendron Parade, this year it was Saturday April 27, 2024.

I love the Rhododendron Parade, it’s a hometown event. Anyone can enter, and that usually includes everyone from people who attach rhododendron blossoms to their dog’s collar and walk along, to large floats of Boy Scouts, a 4-H club, vintage vehicles of all ages, trucks of service providers festooned with flowers, and several marching bands.

That’s in addition to police cars, fire trucks, ambulances, and vehicles from the Forest Service. The Coast Guard pulled a boat in the parade and their rescue helicopter did several flyovers of the reviewing stand. The giant metal crab seems to have been created out of pieces of corrugated metal roofing. It’s parked in an empty lot in downtown Eureka, and I’ve wondered what it is for. Apparently, it waits for a parade.

One of my favorite groups is the Cal Poly Humboldt Marching Lumberjacks, a band that emphasizes dancing and singing along with playing music. Their banner says Cal Poly Humboldt on one side and “March Or Die” on the other. They are always a highlight.

Oh, yes, and here’s a few rhododendrons in person:

Our neighborhood is lovely to walk around at this time of year.

For a few more fun photos, check out @rockchickmonica on Instagram.

Greece, Anyone?

A year ago, we were in Greece. We spent a delightful month in Athens, and went on a private tour around the Peloponnese with PicTours of Greece. Our coordinator was the owner of the agency, George Gaitos, and our trip was terrific (A Week of Ruins in the Peloponnese (1)) Our trip was different from the one George is leading. The description of the trip he will be leading May 10-17, 2024 is below, the Amazing Aegean.

https://pictoursofgreece.com/tour/amazing-aegean/

George has organized a week-long tour to Crete and Santorini coming up in May and is looking for another couple of participants for his group of six. I took a look at the itinerary, and it hits the high spots. George is offering this trip for $4000 per person, a 20% discount from the regular price.

This is not an archaeological tour (there’s lots of food, wine, and local culture), but the group will stop at two archaeological sites that are among the most iconic in Greece.

The palace at Knossos in Crete is a place I’d love to visit. The wall murals are distinctive, and there is interesting controversy over whether some the artifacts discovered at the site were crafted by the workmen (!) In those days, workers were paid for each artifact found as a way to keep them from pocketing finds to sell after hours.

Spring fresco (wall painting) from Akrotiri. Part of the Room D1 from Akrotiri.

The Greek island of Santorini, the other stop on the tour, is home to the archaeological site of Akrotiri, part of which fell into the ocean during a volcanic eruption around 1500 BC. Akrotiri may be the original Atlantis, city found under the waves.

Please contact George directly to answer questions and help you book at the special price.* If you take this trip, please let me know, and consider writing a guest post I can share.

GEORGE GAITIS
CEO – Tour Manager

pictoursofgreece.com

mobile: 0030 697 2026 519

* I have been offered a commission if you book this tour and mention my name. This is the only time I have made this kind of endorsement, and it is because I have personal experience working with George and I am confident that he will provide a quality experience. If you read my blog, you know that I am not normally a fan of tours, but our week with George was memorable.

Spring arrives

Daffodils have been blooming for two weeks or more but it hasn’t seemed like spring because of the near-constant rain. The downpours have abated, the sun is out and spring is really visible all around us.

The sky is light later in the day, and the sun seems brighter. I see colors that remind me of spring and Easter eggs all around me, in some surprising places.