The Fascinating Life and Times of Me

I spent Easter Weekend in the Central California town of Hilmar. Hilmar is all about the dairy industry. You can tell by the inescapable scent of cow that permeates the air. The landscape was very flat and green and pastoral, and there were fields and cows and goats everywhere. The population was somewhere in the 3,000s. I liked Hilmar right away.


On Saturday Erin's grandpa suggested that we go check out a local dairy. His selling point was that they have a sixty cow automated milking carousel. This sounded intriguing enough to Derrick, Erin, and myself, so we headed down the road a mile or two and pulled up at the Ahlem Farms dairy.

Sure enough, there was a huge, round and slowly rotating platform filled with lactating cows. Here is the view we enjoyed as we walked into the milking barn:

And a side view of the carousel. The automatic milking machines are attached by people to the cows udders, and they milk away as the platform slowly rotates. The milk goes down in to what I can only imagine is a gigantic vat of milk.

I would guess it take about ten minutes to rotate around. By the time the platform has completed one circuit, the cows have been milked and are ready to back off the machine.

After we had wandered around the carousel a while someone in the office spotted us and came out to chat. He was the herd vet, and he talked to us for a while about his job and how they treated the cows very nice, in spite of what the environmentalist might think. It was his opinion that environmental restrictions would lead to food shortages and the eventual decline of the US as an international superpower.

The herd vet took us down some stairs into the middle of the carousel. The cows were all very curious to see us down there. They are all Jersey cows, in case you don't know your cow breeds.

There were over 3,000 cows at the dairy, and they were each milked at least twice a day. I should have taken a picture of one of the massive herds, but I didn't. Here is a picture of some cows chowing down instead.


Ahlem Farms supplies their milk to the Hilmar Cheese factory. It seemed only natural that after seeing the milk production we see how the cheese was made, so after a quick lunch we drove a few miles to the Cheese Factory.

The cheese factory is the closest thing Hilmar has to a tourist trap. They have Hilmar Cheese t-shirt, postcards, magnets, etc.


There was a nicely maintained park-like area outside the factory. I was very excited to get the opportunity to visit the back of this (man-made) waterfall.

When you walk in to the factory's visitor's center you are greeted with this beautiful chandelier. This is a view from the balcony toward the main entrance.

The factory had a self guided tour of various displays about the cheesemaking process, from cow to sandwich. Incidentally, while at the factory I learned that I really enjoy the words cheesemaker and cheesemaking. I don't know why.

Derrick is a Cheesemaker and Erin is a Maintenance Worker. They got to keep the hairnets. I think I know what I want to be for Halloween this year. A Cheesemaker!

At the end of the tour there was a window that looked down on the cheese factory. They appeared to be making some type of cheddar. The machines were huge and dumped large amounts of crumbling cheese into big crates which the cheesemakers pushed around on tracks.

Here is a cheesemaker in action!

There was a very large gift shop in the visitor's center, and a few free cheese samples. You could buy all sorts of crazy cheeses and various sauces, dips, packaged soups and breads, and so on. Here is a sample of a finished cheese product, a cheese wheel. This seems to be some sort of foreign cheese, but pretend it is from Hilmar. Their cheese was just in normal plastic wrapping like grocery store cheese.

What a day of exciting yet educational day tripping!

Easter was also an exciting time. I got to meet quite a lot of Erin's extended family, and of course we played a traditional game of Easter Pool. Erin was on my team. We almost won three times!

Then we sat down to Easter dinner. Notice the adorable bunny salad to the left.

After dinner we played a rousing game of stuffed bunny toss and then I lost a game of War to a nine year old. All in all it was a wonderful weekend. I recommend Hilmar to any Dairy or Cheese aficionado. The cow smell isn't that great but at least they are not a pig town. It was a good time with good company and I look forward to visiting again some day.

A couple of days ago I took yet another step towards geriatricness when I turned the big Two-Five. That's like, a quarter of a century. Dang.

Anywho, one of the nice things about birthdays is that people make a fuss over you and give you presents and cake. Not that I care about presents or cake or anything, but since you asked, here is a list of stuff I got:

• a digital camera
• Lost season one DVDs
• Digital Sudoku
• book on No Cal Day Trips
• KiwiStrawberry Capri Sun
• Frozen sliced ham
• TiVo(awesome!)
• Funfeti Cake with chocolate frosting

On to the cake! Here is my POV as I eagerly anticipated the cake's arrival.


Here is a picture of the cake that was caringly prepared for me by Jody with assistance from Lauren. Note the humorous yet poignant reminder of my own mortality in the form of a musical "over the hill" tombstone candle holder.

Here I am taking a big breath before the candles set off the fire alarm....

And here is the moment just after I blew out the candles (technically a reenactment).

After that I violently attacked the cake in a bitter rage.

What followed can only be described as cake-induced madness.

It was good times. Here is how the cake looked when we were done with it. Note the funfeti inside the cake and the sprinkles and Care Bear decoration. Classy.
It was an excellent party and I couldn't have asked for a better bunch of weirdos group of friends to hang out and eat cake with. We should do it again around the same time next year, I think.

Going to the Governor's Mansion State Historic Park was a lot like visiting the Stanford Mansion State Historic Park, except for there was a WAY shorter line and we didn't get to go upstairs. Also they allowed you to take pictures inside.

It was kind of lame, because they herded us through the downstairs of the mansion and right out the back door. But the mansion was lovely inside and very beautiful outside. Plus, they did say if we came back on a day that wasn't free they would let us go upstairs AND tell us interesting stories about the history of the mansion and the 13 governors that used to live there.

I think one of my favorite parts about going to the Governor's Mansion was when we discovered that Historic Route 40 traveled right past it. Historic Route 40 is EVERYWHERE!

Museum #2: Sutter's Fort State Historic Park
Most of my knowledge about forts comes from the classic computer game The Oregon Trail.

Visiting Sutter's Fort cleared up many of my misconceptions about forts, including that forts were really big and that they were an interesting place to visit.

Actually it was a pretty good time. They had people in period clothing doing exciting historic California activities including cooking chicken in cast iron pots, blacksmithing, woodworking, and using looms.

I mentioned my looming expertise to this woman in period dress, and she invited me to show her how a real expert uses a loom. Then she let Lauren try. However, she wouldn't let Jody anywhere near the loom for some reason.Other exciting things that we experienced at the fort included seeing Patty Reed's Doll, checking out old cannons, and skimming over displays about the fort's history. We also hit up the gift shop, where I bough a mug and Lauren bought a harmonica. Jody is lame and didn't buy anything. Here I am next to a marble plaque of Mr Sutter, who is best known for this fort and the discovery of gold at him mill, which led to the California gold rush.
Tired from walking around the fort like suckers, Lauren and Jody hitched a ride on an old-timey wagon. Settlers apparently used similar wagons to travel hundreds of miles across the country in search of opportunities and/or gold. At this point in our day we were thinking about how many miles we would have to travel to find a delicious lunch.

After we had wandered around inside the fort for a while, we took a stroll around the park-like exterior. This is when Lauren almost got us all in trouble when she tried to sneak into the poison room. We hightailed it out of there before the docents came and kicked us out.

Museum #3: Sierra Sacramento Valley Museum of Medical History
After getting a bit lost searching for the museum and enjoying an excellent meal at a fancy sandwich shop, we finally arrived at the Museum of Medical History. I remained pretty un-creeped out because there was minimal grossness. However, the history of medicine is scary. For example, bleeding people with leeches used to be a great cure-all. Plus, many of the "doctors" in the old west had not formal training. And they used to give people all kinds of random "medicines".

Look how happy and healthy we all look thanks to modern medicine! We don't have to worry about diseases like Cholera, Scurvy, Dysentery, and all those other diseases. And syphilis, which seems absolutely horrifying.

It was interesting to look at all of the old medicines and medical tools, and the iron lung was pretty neat. I think my favorite artifact was the Ozone creating machine, which was thought to help people with breathing aliments. Whoops. Mostly I gained an appreciation for how much medicine has improved in the last 100 years, and a greater appreciation for the polio vaccine.

Now seems like as good of a time as any to include a picture of Jody and a tree. It isn't a day trip if there isn't a picture of Jody partially obscured by some sort of flora. This one is from Sutter's Fort, featuring a ginormous palm tree.

So that was our exciting Saturday at Sacramento Museum Day. I really enjoyed going to all three museums, although I wish our trip to the Governor's Mansion wasn't so rushed. Jody and Lauren liked the Museum of Medical History the best. I have now been to eight Museums and State Historic Parks in Sacramento, including the State Capitol Museum and Park, Governor's Mansion, Old Sacramento, the Railroad Museum, the Wells Fargo Museum, the Museum of Medical History, and the Stanford Mansion. But there are a ton more left and I look forward to the next time Sacramento wants to let me inside their museums for free!

The End

Becki has told me the most wonderful news! You might remember back in September we enjoyed the fantastic Admission Day Weekend grand opening of the Leland Stanford Mansion State Historic Park. Wasn't that awesome? Well, Saturday, February 4 is the 8th Annual Sacramento Museum Day!

It is pretty much the same deal as Admission Day weekend (ie, free admission to all of the museums and historic parks in Sacramento), but it only lasts the one day.

There will be 24(!) museums to check out for free on February 4th. However, the website recommends that we only attempt to see 2 or 3 museums/state historic parks on one day. Apparently any more than that would be too overwhelmingly spectacular.

Sutter's Fort

Here is a list of the museums we can choose from. I have helpfully bolded the places I would like to visit.
Aerospace Museum of California
California Foundry History Museum
California Military Museum
California State Capitol Museum
California Museum of History, Women & the Arts
California State Indian Museum
California State Railroad Museum
Crocker Art Museum
Discovery Museum’s Gold Rush History
Center
Discovery Museum’s Science & Space Center
Donald F. Salvatori
California Pharmacy Museum
Explorit Science Center (Davis)
Fairytale
Town
Folsom History Museum
Governor’s Mansion State Historic
Park
Heidrick Ag History Center (Woodland)
Leland Stanford
Mansion State Historic Park
Museum of Medical History
Old Sacramento
State Historic Park
Sacramento Zoo
Sacramento Historic
City Cemetery
Sutter’s Fort State Historic Park
Towe Auto Museum
Wells Fargo History Museum (Old Sacramento location only)

Governor's Mansion

Apparently the Zoo gets super crowded, so we might not want to check that out on Museum Day. But I think that (for example) going to the Governor's Mansion in the morning, having lunch somewhere (we could bring a picnic), and visiting Sutter's Fort in the pm could possibly live up to the awesomeness that was our trip to the Leland Stanford Mansion State Historic Park.

Anyway, I am open to suggestions so let me know.

I was glad to be on the ground and away from the terrible birds, and I rolled my tired and battered body gratefully in the weeds and dirt. I chewed on some of the weeds, trying to settle my nervous stomach. Then I groomed my sap-covered tail for a moment before I sat up on my haunches, scanning the horizons and sniffing the air.

Scrubby dry grass lay before me in all directions, stopping only when it meet the blue sky at the horizon. The afternoon sun blazed down on me ominously. There was no doubt about it, I was lost.

Lesser cats then I might have felt discouraged at this moment. Surely a dog would resign itself to certain death. But I am no inferior creature. Off to my right I could smell car exhaust and hear a distant hum. Cars meant roads, and my home was on a road, so that must be the right direction.

I set off resolutely towards the noise, but paused after a few steps. Did I really want to go home? I sat back down and mulled over it. The prospect of freedom was alluring. I could live off the land, in the wild like my feline ancestors. But I am a domestic goddess. Hunting is fine for sport, but hunting for survival is not so dandy. The main reason I stay with the moronic people and insipid cats are the twice-daily feedings. My mind flashed back to my kittenhood, and the harsh realities of eating out of dumpsters and sleeping under shrubbery on long, cold, rainy nights. As lousy as my home was, it was better than no home at all. I resigned myself to this fate.

Besides, I thought, maybe I would find a better home on my journey. I perked up at this thought, and set out toward the road.
To be Continued...

And now, the thrilling conclusion of My Trip to the San Diego Zoo.


Isn't this just too cute for words? This is the papa bear to the little baby panda that they have a the Zoo. We went to see the baby just as they took it away for its checkup. But this guy was dozing behind the trees in his enclosure and he was just adorable. He is sleeping with his head on his paws. Soooo cute.

This polar bear was looking right at my Dad when he took this picture. He is laying on his belly with his legs sticking out behind him. I think he was was sunbathing. Which is odd because it was pretty warm outside, and polar bears like the cold, I thought. They even have a special cooling system for the polar bear's water at the zoo. But both of the polar bears were out sunning themselves.

This is a pair of some type of bird. Hawk or eagle maybe? I have no memory of seeing these birds. Maybe they were the Sea Eagles. Those are the closest relatives to the Bald Eagle.

Zebras! These were some of my favorite animals at the zoo. They were pretty indifferent to us while we were looking at them, but when the tour bus drove by they all turned around so that their tails were facing the bus. I guess they do that every time the bus goes by.

Here is a bonus Zebra picture. On the sign about the zebras it said that they are black with white stripes, which answers that question from Madagascar.

Now it's time for adorable baby giraffe pictures!


Looking at the baby giraffe was like eating sugar covered in pure corn syrup. It was so freaking adorable that it almost caused me physical pain to look at it. The baby giraffe was off by itself while the adults were eating. It looks cute and little but it is already six feet tall.

This was one of the coolest things that I saw at the zoo. This dog and cheetah grew up together and are good friends! They said that the dog is actually the alpha in the relationship, and that they have to separate the cheetah and the dog at mealtimes or the dog will steal the cheetah's food! During this same show we got to see the Arctic Wolf, which was very cool. At one point they had us all howl at the wolf, and then the wolf would howl back. It was awesome.

Here is an example of some of the numerous free range homosapiens they had at the zoo. I don't know why that lady in the foreground looks so annoyed, because they zoo is the kind of place where it is hard to be unhappy. You can see me and my mom in the back there, we are happy to be at such an excellent zoo.

So that's it for the zoo pics. Going to the zoo reminded me of what a strange but neat world we live in, with all kinds of crazy animals. At one point I heard someone complaining about how the monkeys needed more space to roam around or something, and I know that the habitats that the zoo has aren't perfect, but all of the animals I saw look mentally and physically healthy. They get to live in San Diego, with free room and board. What's not to like?