On March 9th, Finn and I went on the annual fourth grade field trip to Sacramento. I was happy to get to go again since I had a great visit with Ezra’s class two years ago. It’s an early day though! We were on the bus at 6:30 am! Here’s Finn and his friend Floyd setting in for the ride.
There was some confusion at first when our bus tried to drop us off at City Hall instead of the State Capitol building, but soon enough we were where we were supposed to be. We started off with a class picture in front of the building.
Once inside, we waited for our tour time by walking around a bit. Here are a few shots.
Los Angeles County’s display case (every county has one):
Finn in front of the bear that guards the governor’s office:
Our tour guide later told us that Arnold Schwarzenegger bought the bear from an art gallery when he was governor. He also said they call it “germ bear” or “bacteria bear” because everyone touches it. Yuck!
Here are a few shots from our tour. We weren’t able to see the Senate room because there were too many other tours happening but we did see the House. (As an aside, it did seem to be quite a bit busier tour-wise than two years ago. I’m attributing it to everyone’s increased interest in government since our last debacle of a presidential election.)
While our tour guide this time didn’t harass the kids about how they are responsible for taking part in government (a good point with poor execution), this year’s guide wasn’t that great either. He did a pretty good Schwarzenegger impression though. But, he didn’t point out fun things like the tiled California poppies on the floor. Luckily, Finn’s teacher, Mrs. Johnson, did.
After the Capitol, we still had two more stops on our Sacramento tour. Next was Sutter’s Fort, which had another school doing an overnight field trip in costume. Our kids got to see rope and candles being made, as well as the cannon being fired which was a huge hit.
After lunch, our final destination was the Railroad Museum.
Once again I had a little nerdy moment to myself while I admired the place setting display from the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe line.
Finn asked me to sit next to him on the way home. I think he had a wonderful day but was just done interacting with friends. Or maybe he just wanted to play games on my phone. (Sad news for him as there aren’t any games on my phone!) It didn’t really matter because about 20 minutes in he was out.
Great day!