Sacramento isn’t that bad

1/1/09
First of all, here are the couch questions with my host, MJ. I think her answers give you an idea of what an extraordinary person she is. To make one little clarification, she works as a videophone interpreter for the deaf. They call in on video phone and she interprets sign language to make calls to the non-deaf.

As I’ve said before, Sacramento was a surprisingly cool and fun place. My only evening there, I had dinner with MJ and her neighbors Liz and Mark. Total generosity and good times. MJ also introduced me to most of the cool kids that live in the former brothel and we spent a good deal of time sitting on their balcony and playing guitars. I remember Stephen and Debbie by name but the rest were great too.

Another look at the former brothel at I and 21st. Filled with cool folks.

In the evening, MJ, Liz, and myself went out to a local watering hole and sang karaoke. This seems to be a recurring theme in my travels but I swear I didn’t suggest it, nor did I put karaoke in the house in Portland or in my brother’s house in Liberty, Utah…it just keeps happening.

California seems to favor the trucker mustache for the men rather than the full scraggily beard of Oregon. Few beards, lots of mustaches. Sacramento essentially reminds me of a micro- San Francisco or a slightly bigger Bellingham, Washington. Lots of hipsters, but not so full of themsleves or preoccupied with their hipsterness as in Portland. Cleaner and less rainy than Portland, at least within the grid.

In the morning, I walked back to the Amtrak Station after saying goodbye to her and her friend’s dog Abby. I got a non-remarkable breakfast along the way and then spent the next few hours waiting in ice cold fog for a very late Amtrak to Salt Lake City. The platform was crowded with lots of people on their way to Reno who were already hitting the booze at a little before noon.