Sacramento Museums

Recently our little family took advantage of some free kid-friendly events in Sacramento. The first was Little Buckaroos Days at the Crocker Art Museum. It was part of Gold Rush Days (whatever that is). There were a few crafts like "make a cowboy hat" set up on the top floor, a wild west photo booth on the bottom floor, and food tasting, games, and a petting zoo outside. We spent a little bit of time enjoying the art work since we could walk anywhere around the museum. There were some artifacts from 2000-3000 BC which were pretty cool. There were also giant landscapes of Yosemite and other local areas from way back when there was less civilization. The must-see for the day was the petting zoo. For the most part, Evan loves animals...until they get anywhere near him or make surprising noises. I was excited to see how he'd respond. The line was long and sunny (with a semi-entertaining guitar-playing folk singer to keep us distracted), and part of the line was along the petting zoo fence so Evan had ample time to get used to the animals before we went in. Inside the gate was a little scary for him, but he eventually touched the goats and sheep so I'd call it a success.

More cowbell!

The second event was through the Smithsonian free museum day. I was wanting to go to the a California State Railroad Museum for Evan's birthday, but it worked out much better to go a couple weeks earlier for free, of course. The museum had 3 main parts: 1) Photography from the building of the railroad, 2) Model trains and toy trains, and 3) Real trains. Naturally Evan was terrified of the moving toy trains--he screamed every time Thomas passed him around the track--and loved the giant trains. He's learning to say "too too!" when he hears a train whistle. We went inside a few different cars like a dining car, mail car, sleeping quarters, and the engine room. One of the cars had noise and actually shook sideways back and forth so we got a sense of what it would really be like on the moving train.