Sacramento

Sacramento, California: Okay. So forget everything I said above about "happily overnighting" at the Sun & Fun RV Park. Yes, it WAS noisy, as it was just off Highway 99 and near a truck stop (which obviously had a very good cook). All that was fine. It is the smell from hell that ruined our night. At around 10 p.m. we started giving each other strange looks and I began searching through the fridge, thinking there was something that needed to go out. Nothing. It wasn't until DT opened the door to go buy a newspaper that it hit us: the most awful, foul odor of hundreds of head of cattle, crammed into a tiny space on their way to the slaughter house. Parked in a huge field across from the campground were at least 50 semi's - cattle trucks with full loads.  The drivers were sleeping and they had their engines running. This went on all night. I had one small vanilla-scented candle - not enough to disguise the odor, but it helped. We finally went to bed and I had dreams of sneaking out and unlatching all the doors, freeing the poor crying cows... they stampeded through fast food restaurants. The animals were left for hours in the cattle cars without water or food, standing in their own waste. After this lovely treatment, they are rewarded by being killed. I find it interesting that we jail people who do this to dogs.
 
Anyway... after that awful night, we were up and out of there early (obviously without eating breakfast - gag) heading north on Highway 99. We had arranged to meet Mom for brunch/lunch and she met us at a restaurant in Merced with Brother Billy. We were only there for about one hour, but we had a nice meal (no one had beef) and caught up on all the news since our last visit two weeks ago, and made plans for our next visit in just over two weeks for Thanksgiving! One can never get enough of Merced, you know!
 
Then, on to Sacramento, where we invaded Brother Steve and Gina for the evening - forcing them to feed us. Then we drank their beer. (We are the relatives your parents warned you about.) Of course, even though Gina is nursing a cold, we were served a delicious meal - Thai take-out! Easy, and very tasty. After dinner we had a lively discussion of the upcoming Presidential election and, basically, the status of the entire world. Then, we took half of their apple pie home with us... anything to help out a relative. 

RV Park: Cal-Expo RV Park. Site #220. Full service site. Sites are on pavement and not very level.