"The road to a friends house is never long." ~old Danish saying~

Yesterday, I spent the day with my friend "C". in Sacramento. Just drove down for a visit.... and to see one of Farmlady's favorite cats.

Max, the golden fluff, greeted me as if I was a long lost member of the family. He's such a cool cat.
We had some coffee on "C"'s lovely patio. Max joined us for a while and then left us to chase the birds and ducks below the porch. We talked, caught up on things and then left for a wonderful lunch on the Sacramento River.

This restaurant is called The Virgin Sturgeon. It's on the Garden Highway Rd. that follows the Sacramento River west and then north of the city. To reach the inside of the restaurant you have to walk down a covered ship ramp which was rather unique....and would be great on a rainy day. The parking is a bit of a problem. We had to walk quite a distance from the car to the restaurant. My friend had a knee replacement at the beginning of the year and I offered to leave her off in front, but she was a trooper and walked the levy road with me. Her knee is doing beautifully, by the way, and she is a great example of the benefits of modern knee replacement and therapy.
The food was wonderful. I had a Shrimp Louie that was delicious and the views.... well, it doesn't get too much better than this. This is the historic Sacramento River on a sunny summer day.

and this....

How often do you have a view like this when you're eating good food?

After lunch we continued to drive down the levy road along the river.

We went northwest  and then north until we turned back toward highway 5. In the photo above I was trying to take a picture of downtown Sacramento in the distance but we passed this mirror on a post just when I took the picture and I got this interesting shot of "C"s car in the reflection. Sometimes you get photos by accident when you're shooting from a moving car. By the way, "C" was driving, not me.
We went out to a point where the road went underneath Highway 5 but had no access to the freeway. So we took another frontage road back toward downtown.
Sacramento Valley is very flat, but has some of the best farm land in the world. We passed lots of ranches and farms that  seem to be doing well in this economy and it reminded me of what my mother use to say about living on a farm. She always said that her family wasn't rich, but during the Depression they didn't starve. Maybe that's why I love chickens and vegetable gardens so much.
  We drove through the Sacramento Airport and  "C" showed me the new terminal that's being built. She also showed me where Delta Airline drop off is.... and why is that? Because in a couple of weeks I will be... "leaving on a jet plane" from this very spot. I will tell you why later.

We drove back through downtown Sac and down highway 5 to "C"s house....

to a more reserved greeting by Max who seemed happy to see us but I suspect that he had been chasing ducks out on the lagoon. He acknowledged us but decided that a nap was more to his liking. That sounded good to us too but I had a hour drive to get back to my place, so I said my goodbye's and left my friend to take a nap with her beautiful cat.

All in all, it was a lovely day.