I think it may be the wrong time to be running the history nugget, so I’m going to suspend it for now. We haven’t had any takers these last three weeks, so it’s probably something for another time and era. Perhaps I will come up with something different later.
The three of us weren’t quite done yet, so we decided to go looking for more snarfs. I took beautyredefined and WanderingRaleighite to the nearby courthouse, where this odd little arrangement of characters can be found, depicting, in cartoon format, the Gold Rush.
We ended up doing a kind of zig-zag (more…)
It’s Sunday, 1st February, and the buses don’t run quite as early on Sundays as they do the rest of the week. Planning fail! Luckily, this didn’t cramp the style of beautyredefined, AmberLee and WanderingRaleighite; by the time I reached they they’d already trawled through most of Old Sacramento state historic park, a lovely, snarf-rich area. I caught up with everyone just as they started looking for gold. ;)
This is one of the infamous (more…)
The History Nugget meme is a place to write about and/or photograph history. All entries and styles are welcome, from a simple captioned photograph to a full-blown article. The only “rule” is that it has to be about the past in some way.
This is the post for May 18-May 24 inclusive. If it’s already after May 24th, please find the current week’s post to take part. :)
The link to this week’s post is
http://www.markeroni.com/blog/hn-090518
Markeroni, the gentle art of landmark-snarfing is an “informal history” site which provides information about historical markers and landmarks so that you can find them, and a place to log them when you have. This blog is part of Markeroni.
Next on the agenda: Lunch! It turned out that beautyredefined, visiting from Michigan, had never been to an In-N-Out, so she looked it up on her GPS and we found one along highway 50.
At this stage we realized that we were about halfway to Historic Folsom, and that seemed like a really neat place to be going and spending an hour or so.
For example, it has the Folsom Powerhouse, which has at least six different historic designations:
In fact, they have so much history there that sometimes they have to get rid of their old history to make way for the new:
There are murals, which tell the story of the town in pictures:
and the high street is peppered with plaques. Here, beautyredefined discovers her first E Clampus Vitus plaque.
Shortly afterwards, we found our way into the handy local chocolatier, because, well, it’s impossible not to. It had gelato.
Bizarrely, there was an ice rink in the town center and we watched a zamboni trundle over it.
I’d had in mind that there were three state historic landmarks in Folsom, and we finally discovered the last one at the light rail station. Here, WanderingRaleighite and beautyredesigned are unsure which of the several snarfs in that small plaza to tackle first.
All in all, the decision to go to Folsom was
.
Not too shabby at all.
Because AmberLee was (a) driving us and (b) a good sport, she brought us all to our campground, where my husband, Don, joined us for dinner at Chevys. At this stage we realized that we had just broken the record for the most number of official Markeroons in one place, because Don had signed up some years ago to help me with testing.
New record: Five!
It’s Saturday, 31st January 2009, and we’ve planned to go to the California State Capitol. But first, after meeting in our Coffee Shop of Choice, we explore the City Plaza with its lovely monuments and buildings.
This morning we are joined by Avanta, who isn’t a Markeroon, but came down because (a) she’d never been inside the Capitol and (b) is a good friend of TCM and AmberLee.
Look at all those Markeroons!
And all those mascots! (This is a monument to Joe Serna, civic leader in Stockton, California.)
We then proceeded to the gold-capped Capitol building. Dozens of monuments are in its grounds, so you could easily spend a day snarfing in that area.
The state plaque is outside the structure, set into the pavement. This time we managed four mascots.
Much photography was performed. (That’s Avanta in the background, and beautyredefined in the foreground.)
The best way to get a photograph of this:
is to do this:
After admiring the glorious architecture of the main entrance, one of the most fun parts for me was the displays that showed the 58 different counties of California. Here’s Trinity County, the home of Markeroni and one of the two most remote counties in the state:
There were portraits of all the governors to be found somewhere in the building, as well as museum exhibits showing offices as they were back in the day. You could also visit the state house and state senate. It was Saturday, so nobody was in session, but we did notice that the senate had bigger laptops than the house. ;)
Not only is Sutter’s Fort a triple snarf (state, national register and national historic landmark), if you can get there during opening hours it’s a museum as well!
We hooked up with Rendiru there, a non-Markeroon friend, and spent a happy hour reading about the discovery of gold and Sutter, a person who could have been very rich but couldn’t seem to keep the money from leaking out of his hands.
The national historic landmark plaque is outside the main entrance. We covered it in mascots.
Here’s a statue of John Sutter, in which we once again demonstrate that amusing things can be done with perspective.
There’s a monument to Sutter inside, as well. We spent some time figuring out whether or not we should count it as a snarf.
The museum has been set up to reflect life how it was in the mid-19th century. Sutter’s fort made a lot of barrels, and in fact this was one of the place’s primary functions.
As we moved from building to building, we made guesses at what might be found within. Startling audiotapes, triggered by motion, made us jump every time we moved close enough. Sometimes, more than one tape would be playing at once.
This, however, is the Historic Toilet.
There were storerooms and workrooms and this, I believe, was a guest room.
Afterwards, we took a break in the evening sunlight and laughed at the antics of a kid who was chasing the local ducks.
From left to right that’s WanderingRaleighite, AmberLee, beautyredefined and Rendiru.
That concluded the festivities for the day. We headed to the intriguing Tower Cafe for dinner. Its setting is an old movie theatre and inside it’s crammed with ornamentation from all over the world.
The yummy food didn’t hurt, either. :)
The History Nugget meme is a place to write about history. All entries and styles are welcome, from a simple captioned photograph to a full-blown article. The only “rule” is that it has to be about the past in some way.
This is the post for May 11-May 17 inclusive. If it’s already after May 17th, please find the current week’s post to take part. :)
The link to this week’s post is
http://www.markeroni.com/blog/hn-20090511
Markeroni, the gentle art of landmark-snarfing is an “informal history” site which provides information about historical markers and landmarks so that you can find them, and a place to log them when you have. This blog is part of Markeroni.
This is the story of the first Markeroni Unconvention, which took place from 30th January to 1st February 2009. Whether this is an annual event or just a rolling convention that moves from city to city as and when people can be bothered to organize them, we have not established. I did think you might finally want to see the pictures, though. ;)
The Unconvention started bright and early at the one coffee shop in town that was open all weekend. I amused myself by drinking coffee, reading the tourism brochures from the goodie bags, and texting back and forth with the missing Markeroons until they started to arrive two hours later, burdened with bad travel-fu. ;)
Once everyone (i.e. beautyredefined, AmberLee and WanderingRaleighite) was re/united at a little after noon, our first order of business was LUNCH. This was accomplished at Togo’s, a sandwich chain.
After we’d taken care of munchies, it was time to unveil the goodie bags. This is beautyredefined, finding her package of coconut markeroon cookies and immediately getting the joke. ;)
One day, when Markeroni is well-funded, there will be real macaroons. ;)
Because people were suffering from jetlag, carlag, trainlag and buslag, I had planned a quiet day, not very heavy on the walking and landmark-hunting. We headed first to the State Indian Museum.
This museum is not only a snarf in its own right — the first Indian museum commissioned by the government in California — but a fascinating repository of Indian artifacts and culture. There were displays of ritual clothing and interpretation was set up to give an idea of what the different tribes did to keep themselves in food and housing.
I’ve heard California described as a series of isolated nations; we have a lot of geography here. That is very much reflected in the diverse customs and cultures of the tribes.
When we had finished, the curator sent us back in to look at the minuscule hand-woven baskets. You had to look at them through a magnifying glass. They were perfect in every way, and only a few millimeters wide.
We could not take pictures inside the museum, presumably because of the sensitive nature of the exhibits, but it was well worth the small fee to get in.
After that, it was time to move on to the next fun thing, Sutter’s Fort. (Show up tomorrow!)
The History Nugget meme is a place to write about history. All entries and styles are welcome, from a simple captioned photograph to a full-blown article. The only “rule” is that it has to be about the past in some way.
This is the post for May 4 - May 10 inclusive. If it’s already after May 10th, please find the current week’s post to take part. :)
The link to this week’s post is
http://www.markeroni.com/blog/hn-20090504
Markeroni, the gentle art of landmark-snarfing is an “informal history” site which provides information about historical markers and landmarks so that you can find them, and a place to log them when you have. This blog is part of Markeroni.
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