Global Winter Wonderland

We were lucky to have the Global Winter Wonderland come to Sacramento this year.  It was started in 2011 by a group who wanted to bring cultural diversity to the United States.  Don't we already have cultural diversity here?

Anyhow, they pick one city a year to host it, and this year it was Sacramento.  The festival is based on tradition in China called the Chinese Lantern Festival. It's the largest Lantern Festival outside of China.  The theme is to travel the world in one night.  Huge replicas of world places are made in China and then shipped to the festival.  It takes them 6 weeks to set it all up and there are millions of LED lights.  There are also shows like Chinese Acrobats, jugglers and a full carnival with all the normal carnival rides.

We wanted to go, but it was kinda pricey.....it looked like we wouldn't be able to go, and on the last weekend, I won some tickets.....full tickets..including unlimited carnival rides.  Jacob and Hannah found their new favorite ride - taking after Marissa, it's the Zipper!  They went on it over and over and over and over and over again.

It was quite cold that day..it's when we were having a cold spell and got down to about 32 degrees. We came dressed warm and had a great night!  It was a beautiful festival!  Rumor is, it was so successful in Sacramento, (upwards of 500,000 people went - they were hoping for 300,000), that it will be back next year.

Christmas at Work

I work in a pretty generic call center...with lots of cubicles.  It can be pretty bland.  For Christmas, we had a decorating contest, and some of the teams went all out!  It was amazing what they did......There were also a lot of Christmas lights along all the cubicles too.  I was impressed with what they did!

6 Flags

Don't really thing this post needs much text.  2014 was a dryspell for Six Flag visits since I was sick most of the year.

Time to go one time during 2014 -between Christmas and New Years

Let The Winds Begin!

December, and it was a beautiful day!  Good enough to go to San Fran.  Actually, little known fact, the "winter" time in San Fran is often better days than the "summer".  The summer months have more fog and are cooler.

We did a free walking tour, this time of the west end of the Golden Gate Park, specifically, the two windmills that are there.

It was a beautiful setting, and we got to learn about these one of a kind windmills.   The "Dutch" (North) windmill was built in 1903 and was the 2nd largest windmill like this in the world.  The Dutch windmill was patterned after windmills in Denmark.  It's the windmill with the round tower.

The "Murphy" (South) windmill was built in 1908 and was the largest windmill of this type.  So the two largest windmills like these are in Golden Gate Park.

When Golden Gate Park was first built, it was built on huge sand dunes from the ocean. Nobody wanted the land and nothing would grow.  It was always windy and sand blew everywhere. The sand dunes went as far as a mile inland.

When the idea of planting things in the sand became a reality in the 1870's and 1880's, San Francisco had only one water company.  This part of the park was so far away, the water company charged HUGE fees and rates for the water.  At the beginning of 1900, it was decided the water fees were just too much.  Wells were dug instead, and the first windmill was built to use the wind to power the pump for the water.  The first windmill was such a success, a 2nd was built not far from the first to provide additional water for the park.  At it's peak, each windmill could pump 30-40 thousand gallons of water per HOUR!

The pumps no longer work, but the sails and motors have been repaired and the sails actually do turn in the wind.

Of course, we had to stop off at Pier 39 for a bit......