California State Railroad Museum

Today was my daughter's birthday, and she loves trains. So to celebrate, I took her to the California State Railroad Museum which is part of the Old Sacramento State Historic Park. I had been here before--my husband and I used to live in Sacramento--but this was her first visit, and it was a HUGE success! Choo choo!

We first toured the museum itself. Both the first and the third floors were big hits. She liked all of the train cars that she got to enter into--especially the mail car for some reason. Then, she LOVED the floor that featured all of the toy trains. We spent quite a bit of time looking at the model trains, both the electric trains and the wooden Brio train sets.

When we were leaving the museum to go get lunch, we saw that there was a sign out for buying tickets for train rides. Normally the excursion rides along the Sacramento river are only on Saturday and Sunday, but there was a gaggle of school-aged kids who were at the museum as part of their summer camps; lucky for us, the museum had rented out two whole cars to the kids, and they opened ticket sales to the public as well. So even though we did not expect it, we got to go on a 45-minute pleasure ride along the levee.

Another unexpected boon: when we were walking around the historic waterfront of Old Sac, we passed a produce stand that sells Gunther's Ice Cream. When we lived in Sacramento, Gunther's was an absolute favorite of ours. I swear that it's the best ice cream that I have ever had in my life. I had already planned to take my daughter to Gunther's, but I did not expect for it to be so easy to get this delicious treat.

All in all, it was the absolute perfect way to celebrate her birthday. It was definitely worth it to make the hour and a half drive from my home in Livermore. When she's a little older, we can add to the trip by taking the Capital Corridor Amtrak line from the Bay Area to Sacramento!