RV Trips South : Beals Point Campground, Folsom Lake, CA

Day 10, 11, 12: Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, January 24, 25, 26 Beals Point State Park, Folsom, CA

We settled into our nice spot at Beals Point, then went for a walk through the campground and along part of the dam above the lake. The lake is higher than it was when we were here several years ago. We saw a huge flock of gulls swirling, then landing on the lake. A couple of Western Bluebirds were flitting around the motor home when we arrived – maybe looking for bugs on the windshield? We are enjoying having all the amenities – not only electric and water hookups, but 4G cell with 5 bars! Since we use our cell signal with our hot spot for Internet, we have had to switch to Unlimited data – ouch! This is a pretty spot, with woods, meadows, and the sound of frogs at night, all in the middle of a highly populated area! We have started watching Season 6 of Homeland, which I bought before we left home. Preparing for many nights of no local TV, no cable, and certainly no streaming!

Thursday was a rainy day, so we drove to downtown Sacramento and enjoyed the California Railroad Museum. We had a tour and watched a movie, also climbed in an out of lots of trains and train cars. That evening Wendy and Eric treated us to a delicious meal at Pete’s Brewhouse – it is always wonderful to see them!

First steam engine train to travel the transcontinental railroad after the
golden spike celebrated the connection of the eastern and western rails.
Named after Leland Stanford, one of the investors.

Brass plate on the Leland Stanford engine

Survey engineering was a critical part of tract construction.
The museum also honors the many Chinese that helped build the railroad.

An example of a snow shed, which protected the train from the snow through
the mountains. These often caught fire from the steam engines!

Historic steam engine, with the Q tips standing by it.

Friday we let the day warm up a bit, then rode our bikes south on the American River bike path, which goes all the way to downtown Sacramento, 32 miles. A short way past Negro Bar, there was a rockslide in January, 2017, and we knew it was not cleared yet, but hoped to walk around the slide. However, it was very rugged, big rocks, too much climbing with the bikes, so we headed back north and crossed the river on the bridge by Historic Folsom. There we discovered the Johnny Cash Trail, which goes all around the Folsom Prison property (not as grim as it sounds – we could see only grass and trees, but could see no prison buildings). From there we looped back to the campground.