PROGRAM:SACRAMENTO
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA
Almost all Students on Tour Education Programs to Sacramento, will typically include:
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California State Capitol Building tour
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Capitol Grounds tour
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Old Town Sacramento
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California State Railroad Museum
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Sutter's Fort
CLIMATE
Sacramento has a Mediterranean-type climate. Winters can be damp and wet, and the summers are usually hot and dry with a lot of sunshine. The wet season is generally October through April. The monthly daily average temperature ranging from about 45°F in December to 75°F in July. In the summer, a breeze frequently blows in called the "Delta Breeze." It travels from the San Francisco Bay, up through the San Joaquin and Sacramento Rivers. This breeze causes the temperatures to cool down sharply at night.
GEOGRAPHY
The City of Sacramento is located at the coming together of the Sacramento and the American Rivers and has a deepwater port connected to the San Francisco Bay by a channel through Suisun Bay and the Sacramento River Delta. It is the shipping and rail center for the Sacramento Valley's fruit, vegetables, rice, wheat, dairy goods and beef. Food processing is among the major industries in the area. Much of the land to the west of the city is a flood control basin. As a result, the greater metropolitan area sprawls only four miles west of downtown but 30 miles northeast and east, into the Sierra Nevada foothills, and 10 miles to the south into valley farmland.
Sacramento is located about 85 miles northeast of San Francisco and 135 miles southwest of Reno, Nevada on Interstate 80. It is 385 miles north of Los Angeles on Interstate 5.
ESSENTIALS
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Standing beneath the dome of the California State Capitol Building.
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Walking on the wooden sidewalks and cobblestone streets of Old Town Sacramento.
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Seeing Patty Reed's doll at Sutter's Fort.
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Walking through the St. Hyacinthe, a sleeping car, at the California State Railroad Museum. It moves!
Get Prepared
WATCH
This is America, Charlie Brown - The Building of the Transcontinental Railroad [VHS] (1988)
READ
Off Like the Wind!: The First Ride of the Pony Express by Michael P. Spradlin, Layne Johnson (Illustrator) (2010).
LISTEN
Listen to the sound of a steam train. Sacramento was the western terminus of the Central Pacific Railroad. The Central Pacific Railroad joined with the Union Pacific Railroad in 1869, linking the nation from coast to coast and opening the west for rapid development. The transcontinental train was very important to the development of California and the nation.
EAT
Find a bag of Blue Diamond Almonds. Founded in 1910, Blue Diamond is headquartered in Sacramento.
Almonds are California's largest food export and the #1 specialty crop in America.
DRINK
It can be warm in Sacramento. Make sure to drink lots of water. But don't forget all the vegetables that are grown around Sacramento. Maybe a glass of tomato juice or V8, would remind you of all the agriculture nearby!
IN A WORD:
Discover!
SURPRISES
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Finding out how the Old Town area of Sacramento area was raised about 9 feet back in 1868.
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Learning that the people who made the most money during the Gold Rush were the shopkeepers not the miners.
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Sutter's Fort is the oldest restored fort in the United States. It was built in 1839.