Adventures in Sacramento

There was never a shortage of new adventures to be found in and around Sacramento.  The old Gold country was all around us in the form of “Hangtown” (commonly known as Placerville), El Dorado, Diamond Springs and several others.  It was like taking a trip back in time to visit these gold mining towns from the 1850’s and we were the consummate time travelers.  Most of the old buildings from the 1860’s were still standing and several of the towns still had wooden sidewalks.

If you like to fish (ho-hum) there was always the Sacramento River which was also a good place to swim if you were above it’s confluence with the very cold water of the American River.  Now and then we would venture into the waters of Folsom Lake, but it had to be a very hot day since Folsom Lake fed the American River and was the source of its cold water.  One time we got a very large inner tube from and aircraft and inflated it until it was about ten feet in diameter and took it to Folsom Lake.  It rode so high in the water, it was impossible to climb on it from the outside so, to get aboard, it was necessary to go up through the center and use the valve stem as a stepping stone.

There was another place we went to swim known as the Slough House.  It was deep in the Gold country and remote but there was a bridge we used as a jumping platform.  I did not like the Slough House because of the Emerald Green water.  I always thought water should be blue or, in any case, brown, but not green.  I guess I thought the “Creature from the Black Lagoon” was living in its depths.

Another of our popular pastimes was shooting rabbits.  We would all pile into the back of someone’s pickup truck and drive out near the farming community of Dixon.  Dixon was near UC Davis, and many of the faculty farmed plots as part of their studies, much as the faculty at UC Riverside do today.  They didn’t mind us driving over their fields after the harvest to shoot those pesky, troublesome rabbits.  One of my friends was Dave M. and his father was a professor at UC Davis.  Dave’s father was one of the guys who worked a 40 acre parcel in Dixon.  Try to imagine 4 or 5 guys in the back of a pickup, armed with everything from 45 caliber pistols, 22 caliber rifles, to shotguns careening around a 40 acre parcel of flatland and unloading their weapons at one poor little bunny who happened to get caught in the headlights.

Dave and I were at his home one day and we were in his room looking for something, I don’t remember what.  Dave found a “starters pistol” and started playing with it.  In short order, it went off and left us both staring at each other in stunned silence.  We were talking to each other but the only sound we could hear was the ringing in our ears.  It was several minutes before we could hear again.

If the local area did not keep us occupied, there was always Lake Tahoe, a few miles to the East.

Interstate 80 is the main route to Tahoe and follows the original path of the Transcontinental Railroad through Truckee and Donner Pass, but it takes you to the North Shore of Lake Tahoe, and all the activity is at the South Shore.  Highway 50 was the old route through most of the Gold Country and much more scenic.  It runs into Lake Tahoe at the “Y,” only a couple of miles from the border of Nevada; Stateline

We lived at the “Y” for about a year when I was 12 or 13 years old, just about 6 miles from Emerald Bay.

It is an area close to the gambling mecca across the border at Stateline.  Ski resorts, campgrounds, and most of the best beaches at the lake are within walking distance.