Why is Sacramento Interesting?

Christine Amorose Merrill (CAM) works in tech at Spotify by day, and is a thoughtful travel writer and voracious consumer of books by night. Check her winter guide to Finland here. -Colin (CJN)

Sacramento is often an afterthought: a rest stop between San Francisco and Lake Tahoe, a capitol in a cow town. Beyond the downtown grid of alphabet letters and numbered streets, it’s a wide, sprawling flatland of strip malls, cookie-cutter suburban developments, acres and acres of almond orchards and farmland. 

I grew up in Sacramento, and like my creative heroines Joan Didion and Greta Gerwig before me, I moved to New York City as soon as I could (and then said goodbye to all that, and settled in the 70-and-sunny haze of Southern California). 

Even though I didn’t choose to stay in the City of Trees, absence has made my heart grow fonder. Even as Sacramento has grown into less of a rural outpost and more of a far-flung suburb of San Francisco (with all of the upscale stores, homelessness and affordability problems that implies), it’s still worth considering for a weekend jaunt or a place to settle down. So without further ado, all of the things that I love about Sacramento: 

The glittering gold of the Tower Bridge, and remembering when Sacramento Bee ran a poll to readers to choose the color to repaint the bridge (we stuck with the classic). Reaching into the barrels of salt water taffy in the old timey candy stores in Old Sacramento. Riding a bike along the flat tree-lined streets of Midtown, the sun fluttering through the leaves—and stopping in one of the more than 50 local breweries for a crisp, cold IPA to sip in the sunshine. 

A classic BLT cut in thirds with Ruffles chips on the side and a mint chip shake in a fancy glass in a booth at Vic’s. A decadent stack of strawberry French toast at Tower Café, popping next door for an art nouveau film at Tower Theater—the remnants of what used to be a trifecta of Tower franchises, across the street from the original Tower Books and one of the early Tower Records. A perfect banh mi in the unassuming strip malls of Little Saigon—Sacramento is home to one of the largest Vietnamese and Hmong populations outside of Asia. 

The palm trees swaying next to the classic white columns of the Capitol building, the rose gardens in McKinley Park and the Capitol grounds bursting with blooms in late spring. The memory of inner-tubing down a two-story pile of fake snow that was brought into the courtyard of the now demolished Downtown Plaza—and trying to reconcile that memory with the shiny modern Golden One Center that’s home to the upstart Sacramento Kings and the jewel of the newly branded DoCo (Downtown Commons) district. 

The fact that there are no blank walls, every spare square inch of public space possible to be commandeered by public art and the annual Wide Open Walls mural painting celebration. Driving down Riverside Drive and spotting the giraffes poking their long necks up over the fence of the zoo. Hot weather days instead of snow days in high school. The penny-covered floor and a French press made with obsessive expertise at Temple Coffee Roasters. 

The first time I brought my born-and-raised-Manhattanite now-husband to Sacramento, there was a pop-up petting zoo on the streets of downtown—part of the annual Farm to Fork festival that celebrates our local food and agriculture scene. He saw a goat for the first time in real life, and asked: is this normal? I didn’t bat an eye: in Sacramento, somehow, it is. 

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Thanks for reading,

Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) & Christine (CAM)

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