sacramento - day 2

On my second day in Sacramento, the weather was much nicer than it was in Minnesota (like 40 degrees nicer) so I was able to get 3 miles in running downtown before Dan picked me up for lunch. We went to Il Fornaio to talk choral and eat some awesome Italian food. I hate beets but, at Dan's suggestion, I tried this salad. No regrets, folks. Really, really fresh.
















Would you like choir director with your margherita pizza?
















Dan knew one of the head honchos at the Leland Stanford Mansion so we got a private, no-holds-barred tour. It's a California state park and the governor uses it to host foreign dignitaries, sign bills, etc.





















The grand staircase was really cool. The mansion was built in the 1850s (I think) and was originally a smallish house with only 2 stories. After a flood they jacked the entire thing up and added a whole new wing and level underneath (which sits about 1'6" under the ground in order to add some height to the new first floor).
















There was an original turn-of-the-century piano in the mansion with this unusual shape. Apparently, the most cost-effective way to get a piano from the east coast to a place like Sacramento (before the Intercontinental Railroad) was to ship it around Cape Horn below South America. They built them like this so they could stack them in ships and have the legs and pedals attached when they got to California.
















Cool, vintage chandelier.
















Leland Stanford (he founded Stanford University...perhaps you've heard of it?) was a railroad tycoon, so a lot of the furniture in the mansion is modeled after engines.





















The highlight of the tour was when Dan's friend swept aside the velvet rope from the governor's official office and said, "You can sit in the desk if you want. That's one of Arnold's cigars there."




















(And, yes, that's a Cobra Commander shirt I'm wearing.)

And if that wasn't good enough, this display case in the outer office was described thus: "Ronald Reagan started this spur collection."














Did you know that the first name of the actor who is currently the governor of California is an anagram for the only other actor to be the governor of the same state?

After the Stanfords left (they founded the university when their only son died) the home was donated and turned into an orphanage. The "park rangers" set up one of the rooms to look like it did back then.
















Leland Stanford, being the simple and humble man that he was, had his face carved into every window frame. (I'm making fun of this but I'd totally do it...and so would you if you had the greenbacks.)
















As an extra special treat we got a chance to look at the gift that Arnold and Maria give to visiting dignitaries. Their signatures are etched in silver on the front. I bet I could make a down payment on a house if I had somehow managed to swipe one of these things.














Lesson learned: if you get a private tour of the governor's mansion you should bring a bag that stuff can fit in so you can steal it.

After Dan dropped me off, I went down to the sushi restaurant directly below my apartment, Tamaya, for some great food before the concert. I can't imagine that, living in the Twin Cities, I'll ever get closer to my favorite food in my life. I ordered the spicy tuna roll.















I was still a little hungry so I went quasi-omakase and asked the chef to surprise me with something that had flavor. He made the "Cherry Blossom" and, holy crap, it was the best roll I've had since my first experience having sushi. Click on the picture...it was so amazing.
















After the Friday night concert (which I have no pictures of), a few of the Vox folks and I dropped in on 33rd Street Bistro for supper. We started with the gourmet fries.
















I moved on to the pan seared salmon.
















Around 2am Sacramento time Dan and I decided to head to the One Man Band (check that link out!). The One Man Band (or Acoustic Sanctuary as it's actually called) is just a guy in the van pictured below who has a zillion instruments and just makes up songs for tips. No lie. Seriously, check out the hyperlink. You just walk in and suggest a subject and he makes up a song.





















Here's a side shot. That's not sunrise you see (I wish I still had that endurance!). I snapped a few before I went to the concert.
















I decided to link to a YouTube video of this amazing musician rather than air my post-2am-on-a-celebratory-night dirty laundry and, frankly, it is much more enjoyable. He was unbelievable! Someone told me that he actually teaches high school...unlikely...but possible, I suppose.

Enjoy. This is what I did for about 20 minutes before extreme fatigue set in...albeit way less cool.

It was a totally unique experience. This Minnesota composer sat in the back of an enormous purple van in Sacramento filled to bursting with instruments and requested a song at 2 in the morning. Then I slept a lot.

Raise your hand if you've done that before and you're not from California's capitol. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

So that's the second day in Sacramento. I took a ton of pictures so tomorrow I'll post on the third. What I just testified to was the wildest day I had...obviously.

p.s. Anybody remember Commando? Yep. Someone should make that guy the governor of a state. Thank god nobody else is as weird as California. Wait...oh, damn.