Sacramento, CA
Sacramento's original airport, opened 1930 as Sutterville Aerodrome — one of the oldest continuously operating municipal airports in California. Several WPA-era corrugated iron hangars from the New Deal work in the 1930s still stand on the field. The current main terminal building was built in 1955, replacing earlier structures, and remains in use. The U.S. Army Air Corps took over the field during WWII (training first on P-39 Airacobras as a Chico AAF auxiliary, later heavy bombers). Renamed Sacramento Municipal after the war. Commercial airline operations moved to Sacramento Metropolitan (now Sacramento International, KSMF) in October 1967, at which point the field was renamed Sacramento Executive. Today a busy GA reliever 3 miles south of the State Capitol; news, police, and medevac helicopters base here. The on-field Aviators Restaurant has runway views.
California's capital is a Gold Rush city. When James Marshall found gold in the foothills in 1848, merchant Sam Brannan opened a store on John Sutter's riverfront embarkadero, and the rush did the rest — Sacramento was the trading post where every miner outfitted before heading to the diggings. The waterfront survives as Old Sacramento, the West's first historic district: 53 preserved 1850s buildings on raised wooden sidewalks (the streets were jacked up a full story after repeated floods, leaving tunnels still under downtown), plus the California State Railroad Museum and the western terminus of the transcontinental railroad. The State Capitol's copper dome rises a mile east, linked to the river by the Tower Bridge — painted metallic gold by public vote, a vertical-lift span that's also the shortest state highway in California. Sutter's Fort, where it all began, still stands a few blocks farther.
The world's largest concrete "drain" — a 72-foot-diameter funnel that pulls water down 200 feet into a tunnel cut through the canyon wall. It is the spillway for Monticello Dam, built in 1957 to flood the agricultural town of Monticello and create Lake Berryessa, which still supplies water to Solano County. The dam sits at Devil's Gate, a narrow gorge with no room for a conventional channel spillway, so engineers built a bellmouth — a morning glory spillway, named for the flower. Locals call it the Glory Hole. It only activates when the lake reaches 440 feet elevation — full pool. From 2006 through 2024 it ran exactly twice (2017 and 2019). Then back-to-back wet winters in 2024 and 2025 brought it roaring back. When dry, the rim sticks out of the water like a concrete crown. When the lake is full and the spillway is going, water pours over the rim in a smooth laminar sheet and disappears straight down — a circular waterfall in the middle of the lake.
The world's most famous wine region from the air — 30 miles of valley between two mountain ranges, neat geometric vineyards stretching to the horizon. The Robert Mondavi mission-style winery, Castello di Amorosa (a full-scale 13th-century Italian castle replica, 2007), the Napa Valley Wine Train. Yountville (with three of California's 14 Michelin three-star restaurants — including The French Laundry) is the gourmet capital. The Mayacamas to the west and Vaca Mountains to the east frame the valley. Especially gorgeous at harvest (September-October) when leaves turn red and gold.
Rising alone out of the flat east of San Francisco Bay, Mount Diablo punches far above its 3,849 feet because nothing around it competes — on a clear day the summit sees over 100 miles, reportedly across 40,000 square miles, one of the largest viewsheds of any peak on Earth. That visibility made it a survey datum: in 1851 the summit was chosen as the Initial Point of the Mount Diablo Meridian, and to this day nearly every property line in northern California and all of Nevada is measured from this one mountaintop. The CCC-built summit building holds the survey marker and a small museum. The aviation hook: the summit beacon, built in 1928 to guide airmail and commercial pilots and visible for 100 miles, was first lit by Charles Lindbergh — and is still lit once a year, every December 7th, for Pearl Harbor Day.