When I arrived in Sacramento, I realized that even though it’s been fun to explore new cities and national parks, I was craving a normal weekend. I ended up having a perfect restful weekend with family. I stayed with my cousin Glendita, her husband, Nathan, and her son, Jason. Though I barely saw Jason since it’s graduation season and he is a senior, so he was going from party to party all weekend. Glendita’s siblings, Nachito, Verito, and Andrea also live in Sacramento.

On Saturday, I went grocery shopping with Glendita and stocked up on snacks for the rest of my road trip at Costco. In the afternoon, Andrea came to Glendita’s house with her husband, Marcos, and 3 year old daughter, Camila. I spent time playing with Camila. For some reason, she really enjoyed taking turns going into the pantry and the other person knocking on the pantry door so whoever was in there could come out. At one point, she needed to go to the bathroom and said something along the lines of “the cousin can stay in there”, as she chose to leave me in the pantry while she went to the bathroom. Luckily, I heard her say it and came out.

Later, we went to get ice cream at Leatherby’s. Verito and her husband, Jorge, met us there. Leatherby’s has huge ice cream arrangements. I ordered a brownie with vanilla ice cream and confirmed with the waitress that it came with just one scoop of ice cream. When it arrived, it looked more like 3 scoops of ice cream and when I asked the waitress about it she said “our scoops are big”. That was an understatement. I still managed to finish almost all of my ice cream and brownies. After ice cream, Glendita and I went to see The Devil Wears Prada 2. I had been wanting to see it for a while, but hadn’t found the time to do it.

On Sunday, I spent most of the morning and early afternoon in the backyard, reading by the pool, and then reading in the pool with Glendita. Later, all of my cousins came to Glendita’s house. Nachito made us mint cocktails with creme de menthe, condensed milk, and ice, and Glendita prepared a hot dog bar for us. Camila and I played the pantry game again. Juan Diego, Verito’s son, showed up towards the end. He was toddler last time I saw him and now he’s in middle school! I felt very old seeing him. It was really nice to see everyone and spend time with them. It had been a few years since I’d seen any of them.

This morning, I decided to see a little bit of Sacramento before driving to Sequoia and King’s Canyon National Parks. I walked around Old Sacramento and then walked towards the Capitol, so I could at least see it from a distance. To get out of Old Sacramento, I had to walk through a tunnel under a bridge that looked kind of sketchy at first glance. When I got closer, I realized that there was classical music blasting in the tunnel and that made it feel perfectly safe. It was a fun surprise.

After seeing some of the city, I continued my drive. In the next few days, I’ll be exploring Sequoia and Kings Canyon, which are right next to each other.