Field Trip Thursday...

Last Thursday was a beautiful day. We decided it was a fantastic Sunny day in california and the kids could really use a field trip. So with our tanks full of gas we hopped in the car and drove the 30 minutes to Old Sacramento.

For a homeschooling family Old Sac is a wonderful place to explore! There are several museums there as well as original buildings that date back to the gold rush.

We talked about the Pony Express. This happens to be the last stop the Pony Express made in its cross country venture to bring the mail. There are wonderful statues and Plaques in Old Sac that tell part of the tails. This of course interested some more then others.

My family hanin out with the rider. 

An image of a Pony Express rider

We took a ride in the horse and carriage and talked about how the modes of transportation 100+ years ago.

This building was the first wells fargo bank in Sacramento. It is no longer a bank but the building is still there with the signs up so that you can see what it looked like decades ago.

The whole Old Sac area is fun to walk around, even though its just full of shops. There are some great little eateries there as well as several museums. We went into the Military Museum which dates back to the first skirmishes ever fought in California in the Spanish American war. I will blog all about that on another day and include several of the pictures I took inside that museum.

we visited the old school house as well and really enjoyed talking with the historian inside. She talked about how school back then was a lot like homeschooling because you had more then one age group and the older children always helped the younger children get through their studies. 

We walked down to the American River and talked about how it served as a way for goods to be sent up river to Sacramento from San Francisco during this time. We also talked about what type of animals might live in the river when we found this guy 

Sunning himself

loving the sunshine

and the attention we were paying him.

We stayed and had a wonderful dinner at Joe's Crab Shack. and watched the sunset over the American River.

We learned more in one day then we could have learned in a month of studies. We had a blast and enjoyed some of our local attractions. We will likely miss some of these things when we relocate but I am positive we will find some new interesting history to enjoy in our new location as well.

Stay tuned for the blog about the Military Museum and some of what we learned while we were there.