Tahoe Day 5...Gold Rush Days

We left Tahoe Monday morning and headed home with a pit-stop in Sacrament to attend the Gold Rush Days festival. Gold Rush Days is when old Sacramento is transformed back to...the gold rush days. They even bring in loads and loads of dirt the cover the streets! My main objective was to do the train ride around Old Sacrament because it was the last day of the year they were having it before stopping for the season. We had planned on connecting with our friends, the Kapics, but only got to say hi for a minute before having to rush off to catch the next train. I hope next year we will have a bit more time to explore around and fully take in all the festival has to offer (maybe we won't be fighting that darn nap time next year) because there looked like so much wild west entertainment to enjoy!

As I said, we were able to see the Kapics for a second (not long enough for a picture) but they are members of the train museum and Emily was able to get our train ride tickets for FREE! Thank you Emily!! I think the kids were more excited to have their own tickets as they were to ride the train! They held on to them the whole time we were in line and all the way up until the ticket guy came through the train to stamp them.

I think Young parents might have enjoyed the ride a little more than the kids...
Until the engine moved from the front of the train to the back...oh, exciting
After the train ride we were able to walk around a little more and check out some of the activities. We heard the cannon being shot(Cameron did not like this), saw some soldiers riding along(Timo loved them) and got to travel back in time just a little bit with all the sights and sounds of the old west.

And as usual, there was big drama trying to leave. The kids are getting so smart, they could tell when we changed directions and started heading to the parking garage. It's always the case when they are over tired and screaming because they don't want to go...they were fast asleep before we could even get back on the freeway home! They were so tired, they slept the whole way (2+hours in Labor Day traffic), we had to wake them up to get out of the car! What a great ending to a great vacation!!