Nuts

We were in the car outside Vacaville on Highway 80, me, Tony, the kid and our friend's 13-year-old, and everybody's getting kind of hungry, and I said "Well, there's got to be something at the old Nut Tree exit. Let's see what we can find."

Now the Nut Tree began as this road side attraction back in the early days of the Highway System. First it was a farm stand. Then a restaurant. Then they added a few rides, and by the time Tony was a kid, it was a full-on amusement park type place, and people would stop there on their way to Reno and Tahoe and all that.

Then it was shut down for a long time, and as you drove by you would just see this forlorn "Nut Tree" sign by the side of the road outside Vacaville.

And every time we drove by Tony would say "Oh, the Nut Tree. We always used to stop there on the way to Carson City."

Well, then I remember reading a news story a couple years ago about some developers had bought the Nut Tree and they were gonna bring back the rides and some of the old colorful roadside ambience of years gone by and I thought "Hey, that looks like fun. We should stop by there some time."

So we did. Two weekends ago. With the kids. Oh man, they got rides and stores and restaurants and all kinds of stuff.

It's kind of hard to find cheap food. You know how it is when you're a parent. You see carnival-type rides, and you figure there's got to be a hot dog stand around someplace where you can rely on the cheap empty calories to offset cost of the ride tickets.

But no. Not at the Nut Tree. They been playing the game too long to let you get away with that little trick. We did manage to find a value-customer-oriented tacqueria not far from the ride area though.

And there was a gumball machine filled with what appeared to be alfalfa pellets. You know, like you see at the petting zoo? But no petting zoo.

Hey, if you can get your kid to eat alfalfa pellets, I say go for it. It's probably better for him than a hot dog.

Kurt "big daddy" True
21 november 2007