After being absolutely mesmerized by such a smooth landing after accompanying me to Oklahoma City, Nicole wanted to go for another plane ride with me at the helm. And she should consider herself lucky to be partnered with an airline pilot — a profession that exudes glamor and prestige with exotic locales on their itinerary. That’s why she was coming with me to what some might be calling one of the hottest destinations on the globe — Sacramento, California.

From Los Angeles, it is about a 1 hour flight, but would take 7 hours in a car. We touched down around 1:30pm amidst a scorching 98º day and caught the shuttle to the Element Hotel, ideally situated in the middle of a shopping center with all the usual big box stores and chain restaurants that Americans have come to know and love. “Olive Garden, my love?”

We dined at BJ’s where Nicole had a big pretzel and I had a green chile burger. After this hearty meal, we returned to the Element which was having a sort of “Relax Hour” as they called it with drinks and food. The beer taps weren’t working, so white wine is all that was available. Furthermore, there was a small selection of bread, cheese, and olives as accompaniment. It wasn’t much, but some who read this blog could have made a meal out of it.

But Nicole didn’t come all the way to Sacramento for a couple of olives. Nay! She had tickets to see the Sacramento River Cats take on the mighty Tacoma Rainiers. Always a fan of minor league baseball, Nicole discovered that this night was a special “Musical” night, called River Cats the Musical. We really didn’t know what to expect with this.

In front of an estimated 127 adoring fans, a ragtag group of River Cats employees (including a security guard and someone who did their ticket sales) attempted to sing and dance. The notes were often quite sour, but this made it all the more endearing. The story they were attempting to weave between the innings was that Dinger, the River Cats mascot, was being heckled by a no good LA Dodgers fan. To understand why this person was the villain, you would have to understand the weird NorCal/SoCal rivalry that appears to only be a thing in the baseball world.

Anyway…poor Dinger believed that he could hit a ball, but that awful Dodgers fan kept telling him he didn’t have it in him. After a series of screechy notes and rewritten lyrics to such broadway staples as “Seize the Day” or “Go the Distance,” Dinger found the confidence to finally hit the ball. To be fair, this was a much clearer storyline than the actual Broadway musical, Cats. There was evidently also a baseball game going on during the Musical intermissions.

It started off rather lackluster especially for the River Cats, who couldn’t get on base or in some cases even a hit until maybe the 5th inning. They were eventually able to turn things around and proceeded to get nine runs to seal their victory over the ravenous Rainiers. We left in the 8th inning after the musical (the real performance) had concluded.

Having been to some minor league games in the past, this one seemed especially silly. Attendance was paltry. I think people were just applauding when anything would happen — regardless of which team was doing it. Needless to say, the announcer didn’t come on to give attendance numbers for the night. It would have been sad. At one point, a flock of birds flew over the stadium in formation which garnered a lot of interest. I told Nicole it was all they had in the budget for a flyover. It is unfortunate that the mighty Modesto Nuts changed their mascot. It’s hard to beat the nuts. There are no longer any ridiculous mascots in the California minor league, so Nicole will have to get on a plane for more than an hour for her next game. The Rocket City Trash Pandas are calling.