A tale of two burger joints: Same name, same company – but 2 different cities and 2 totally different dining experiences.
On two separate weekends, I tried out Burgers and Brew in Sacramento and Davis. Both are owned by Crepeville.
Let’s start with the one in Sacramento.
[Burgers and Brew in Sacramento]
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Talk about a Top Dog!
The San Francisco Chronicle reports a Sacramento Wiener dog wins one of the heats at the Wiener Nationals dog race regionals.
[From the San Francisco Chronicle]
Check out Downtown Beans, the 2008 Champ. He’s so fast!
I saw my first Wierner dog race at last year’s Picnic Days. It’s a fun tradition at U.C. Davis and the racers are so cute!
[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/994206[/vimeo]
The countdown is on to Earth Hour.
This green campaign wants people around the world to vote for Earth at 8:30 PM, local time.
For the first time in history, people of all ages, nationalities, race and background have the opportunity to use their light switch as their vote – Switching off your lights is a vote for Earth, or leaving them on is a vote for global warming. – from earthhour.org
We’ll see how that works out.
Back in Sacramento, I celebrated the first weekend of Spring at the Tower Cafe. This delightful garden foodie spot has its own connection to green-friendly traditions. In 1990, it opened for business on Earth Day, April 22.
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While browsing craigslist sacramento a few months age, I noted an ad for a Sacramento Meetup that included a link. The link was for a local Travel club. I attended a few meetings and discovered a group of interesting, active people as well as storehouses of travel information.
Having had so much good fortune with the Travel group, I branched out and discovered there’s a (very active) Sacramento Hiking group. There’s also a lot of health-oriented groups, such as exercise groups. The interesting thing about these groups is that one or two passionate people start them, and then when the membership runs out (Meetup charges an organizer fee), they disband. Most often they disband because there aren’t enough attendees at the scheduled meetings.
If you’re looking for something to lift the winter blues or just to get you out of the house now and then, I recommend checking some of these groups out. Who knows, you might make a few new friends.
The state of things here in Sactown: brace yourselves for winter.
A few weeks ago, a shop on my downtown walk was desparately fighting to stay open. The name of the place: Tenacity Gifts. But even with a name like that, there wasn’t enough. Tenacity, that is. So, one day they closed. The day after they closed, there was a woman sleeping under the glass store window. She didn’t appear to be the “typical” homeless person, as she had a clean, new sleeping bag, and her hair appeared to be clean. The thought occurred to me that she might have been the owner, saying goodbye. But probably not.
Even though the store didn’t make it, I hope we all have the tenacity needed to hang on in the weeks ahead!
This morning my family happened to be on I-5 heading north through the city to the I-80 Westbound. I looked over my shoulder into the left lane, and there was a classic-style fire engine, ornate and gleaming, leading a convoy that stretched at least half a mile down the highway. All the vehicles in the convoy were different sizes of firefighting trucks and vehicles. My daughter called out Arizona plates on one of the vehicles. They appeared to be traveling north—to either the Butte or the Shasta-Trinity county fires.
I couldn’t help but feel some sort of relief in seeing these folks. Based on the air quality and the fire-marathons we’ve been observing, their help is much needed. I hope this convoy and the international groups coming in can make some headway. It has been a long, smoggy summer so far.
I’m crossing my fingers for containment.
The Sacramento French Film Festival will arrive this Friday night in a bluster of wine and baguettes at the Crest theater. While Opening Night is on the 18th, you can attend a number of les films as the fest will run for deux weekends (deux means two). A single ticket is $10, but the party and all-you-can-watch passes are a bit more.
If you don’t speak the language of love (no not, “charge it!” but French!), no worries. All films have subtitles in English. Et c’est merveilleux!
The Russians are coming…oh wait, they’re here. I just love saying that. Saturday, May 17 from 10 AM to 8 PM, there will be a YARMARKA (fair or festival) at Southside Park downtown. The park is just off Hwy 50 at 6th and W Streets. Free admission.
I’m told the event is kid friendly with food, performances, and souvenirs. There will be several music performers, including at least one Christian rock group. Oh yes, and a Ukrainian female rapper “Verka” should be there as well—it looks like she raps in English—non-religious, as far as I can tell.
If you want more info, here’s a mini-video of last year’s event. Caution: it’s all in Russian, but can give you an idea of what went on last year. I particularly like the “Russian Biker Club” segment where one guy wears a leather jacket in the video that says “Russian by Birth, U.S. Marine by Choice.”
Hoo-Rah!
There’s a brand new building rising at 30th and Q that I mentioned in a previous blog entry. This new building, a Mercy Hospital satellite, sports a dark New Mexico orange tint. Nearly every new building going up lately in and about town is wearing a similar shade of burnt umber / tequila sunrise orange. Why? We’re not New Mexico; this is not the desert. We aren’t trying to color coordinate with red rock formations. Sacramento is a river city, and if anything, shouldn’t new buildings be in a complementary shade?
Or perhaps “they” know something I don’t know? Maybe the water crisis is worse than we think and river city will become dry creek. I hope not. Meanwhile, the backdrop for a bad western is out there, already. Get yer lassos ready, cuz we’re ropin’ some cattle this weekend, y’all.
