Planning this day in the Sacramento region works better once you stop hunting for one big event and start instead with the thing he already likes doing most. Every year the weekend fills up with cruises, train rides, festivals and tasting rooms, and every year the list is slightly different. The list is not the useful part. The useful part is knowing which kind of afternoon you are actually putting together, and then finding the version of it that exists here.
Here is the trade I would rather you hear from me than discover at the gate. The best of these are fixed departures with a fixed number of seats, they happen on one Sunday, and the ones closest to the river go first. Decide by the Tuesday before, not the Friday.
START WITH THE THING HE ALREADY DOES
The mistake I see most is planning a schedule instead of a day. Somebody builds a morning, a lunch, an afternoon and a drive, and by two o’clock everyone has been in the car three times and nobody is enjoying it.
Take the pastime first. If he fishes, find water. If he golfs, book the tee time and let the rest of the day be lunch. If he likes beer, this region has a taproom problem in the best sense. If he likes wine, there are tasting rooms twenty minutes from downtown and a whole county of them to the west.
Then build one thing around that. The day does not need a theme. It needs one part he would have chosen himself.
THE PARTS THAT ONLY EXIST ON THIS WEEKEND
Some of it is genuinely once a year, and it is worth knowing which parts those are.
A river cruise leaves from downtown Sacramento, runs about an hour, and narrates the waterfront while you sit. The River Fox Train runs out through the Yolo County farmland from West Sacramento, and the point is the sitting and the looking rather than the destination. Both are fixed departures and both fill.
Farther out, the California Bluegrass Association holds its long-running festival in Grass Valley, with food, crafts and camping under the pines. Cal Expo has held the Crawdad Festival, which is Cajun food, live music and local vendors. Four very different afternoons. All four are dated, all four are busy, and none of them is a secret.
THE BREWERIES ALREADY SOLVED THE GROUP PROBLEM
This is the category I point most people at, and it is not close. A family-friendly taproom solves the thing that ruins group afternoons, which is that nobody wants to sit still and be quiet for two hours. The ones with cornhole, pinball and giant Jenga keep a table of mixed ages happy without anyone organizing anything.
Newcastle has Hillenbrand Farmhaus. Lincoln has Dueling Dogs. West Sacramento has Drake’s at the Barn, which fills its yard with games, live music and a truck show on the day. Call first. A taproom that is peaceful on a normal Sunday can be a completely different place on this one.
TASTING ROOMS, AND THE MILL IN CLARKSBURG
Wine is the other easy answer, and the region is unusually well set up for it because so much of it is close to town.
In midtown, Séka Hills pours wines, olive oil and vinegar grown on its own Yolo County land, which makes it the rare tasting room you can walk to from a hotel. West of the city, the Old Sugar Mill in Clarksburg is a converted mill holding several tasting rooms in one building, and it is the closest thing here to a choose-your-own afternoon. Out in Yolo County, Matchbook and Miner’s Leap both put something on for the day.
Check the calendar before you promise a specific event. The rooms are open regardless. The special programming is not guaranteed.
IF HE WOULD RATHER BE MOVING
Some people do not want to sit down at all, and the region handles that too.
Tributary Whitewater runs raft trips out of Lotus on the American River, and in a wet spring that is a real afternoon rather than a float. Quarry Park Adventures in Rocklin does rock climbing and zip lines in an old quarry, which is a sentence that sounds made up until you see it. Golf is the quiet version. Bartley Cavanaugh sits along the river near Elk Grove, and courses across the region run their own events on the day.
Pick one of those. Rafting in the morning and a tasting room at four is ambitious for a group that includes children.
THE COMPARISON I REACH FOR, AND WHERE IT STOPS WORKING
The closest ordinary thing I can think of is a potluck. A potluck works because nobody carries the whole meal. Each person brings the one dish they are actually good at, and the table ends up better than any single cook could have managed alone.
That is the right instinct for this Sunday. Let each part of the day come from someone who likes doing it. One person books the tee time, one person finds the table, one person drives.
It stops working because a potluck has no clock and this day does. Events have one seating and one departure time, and the good ones are gone weeks out. The comparison gives you the shape of the day and then hands you a deadline.
WHAT THE DAY ACTUALLY COSTS YOU
- Everyone has the same idea on the same Sunday. Seats and tee times go early, and the popular departures go first.
- The drive is part of the plan, not a detail. Grass Valley, Lotus, Clarksburg, Newcastle and Lincoln are not next to each other or next to you.
- The special programming is not guaranteed. A venue that is open every weekend may not repeat what it did last year.
- Weather decides some of it. Rafting, festivals and anything outdoors are at the mercy of a wet spring.
- The plan can become the point. If the schedule matters more than the company, you have built a worse day with more driving.
- Not everyone wants a big afternoon. A quiet lunch and a walk is a legitimate answer, and sometimes the better one.
One thing I say often: the way a region spends its best weekends tells you more about living here than any brochure does. If you want to talk about that, I am the person who answers, and the neighborhoods hub is where I keep the area guides.
Question for you: what is the one thing your family does every June that has nothing to do with a restaurant?
Adapted from Things to Do With Dad This Father’s Day, originally published by Windermere Signature Properties at windermerecalocal.com.
WHEN YOU ARE READY
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