When we lived in Tahoe the only time we went to the lake was when we had guests. Dumb yes, but true. It's so easy to get too busy, with every weekend passing by with puttering around the house and yard, working on all the things that had the nerve to break down. And I offer that up as my excuse for never having been inside the Capitol in Sacramento. Yep, that building downtown that my Moldovan friends call The White House had never been graced by my footsteps.
The Capitol in Sacramento in the Capital of California (the building has the O, the place and the adjective have the A) has some amazing plant and tree specimens. I know this because a few years back we were in a contest called the Great Sacramento Race, and part of the competition involved running around getting information from the identifier plaques from various trees. Last Sunday, we took the grounds at a much easier pace, mostly because we decided to not only bring our out-of-town guests, but we brought our dog Molly too. I figured it just might be camellia season, and it was! Full on gorgeous camellia season with dozens and dozens of professionally tended bushes coaxed into the most amazing shapes. These had passed up the term "bush" long ago and were outright trees. White, pink, red, red with yellow centers, red and white peppermint swirls, compact, fluffy (see how I really know my camellia terminology?) they were just lovely.
And what a surprise when we saw that the Capitol was open for tours, on a Sunday no less. Taking turns outside walking the dog, we all stepped into the warm and welcoming building. There is a long hallway with all the counties' attributes displayed. Our guests from Lake County enjoyed seeing their county display, and we all were able to use a real bathroom as opposed to the port-a-potties set up for a rally outside. I finally saw the beautiful rotunda under the dome. My Dad worked on the renovation of the building years ago, and got to see the artisans restoring it. He was right, it is really stunning. So there, the Capitol in the Capital was seen and appreciated. Capital!
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| Someone knows what they're doing. |
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| The rotunda |
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| Arnold, the bear that Schwarzenegger left. |
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| Molly left a little something herself, on the grass. Ernst, a very good pet owner, got a bag out of the trash and did the right thing. |
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| We don't know what we're doing, but we still got blooms from our Charlie Brown Camellia bush. |
