The California Museum

Jill's Journal: Our excursions in Sacramento (Sutter’s Fort, the Capitol building, and Fairytale Town) up until today have all been outstanding, so I suppose we were due for a lousy one! The California Museum was definitely a disappointment. Mostly there were a lot of pictures of famous Californians in the “Hall of Fame” and several exhibits that didn’t quite flow smoothly from one to the next (i.e. Californian Women to Water Resources to Japanese Internment during World War II). Maybe we’ve been privileged to visit so many superb museums on this journey that we are holding places to a higher standard? At any rate, visiting The California Museum definitely felt like a waste of time and money. But I suppose an unsatisfying experience every now and then makes one really appreciate all the great museums out there!

We did manage to uncover a few fun treasures. The apron Betty White wore on the Mary Tyler Moore show was one of them.

Peggy Fleming’s 1968 Olympic Gold Medal was another.

This is an exact replica of the Titanic’s wheel and engine wheel; these were used in James Cameron’s movie Titanic. Apparently, to save money, the set for the movie only included the starboard side of the fateful ship. The film for any scene appearing on the port side had to be flopped in post production.

And this dinosaur is the first model of computer Apple made for individuals (around 1980).

Okay, so we did find some fun things at The California Museum!