Twenty Summer Adventures

Summer fun in Yolo County

Summer is here and if you’re lucky, that means more time for new adventures. This list, 20 things to do in and around Davis, includes things to do on your own, with friends or with kids. Some are a little weird. Some will force you out of your comfort zone. Some are challenging and others are just plain fun.

Whether you try any of these or you just want to spend your summer sipping lemonade and reading in your hammock, happy summer.

1. Enter your famous brownies, prize heirloom tomatoes or your original artwork in the Yolo County Fair. This year’s theme is “Over the Moon” and runs August 14 – 18. It’s free to all. Entry forms are due by July 31 online or in the fair office, 1125 East St. in Woodland; Visit:  https://www.yolocountyfair.net/p/fair/competitionbook.

2. See Yolo County from a new perspective. Drive north to Guinda, park at the General Store and hike Road 53 through Pierce Canyon. This is an easy hike with spectacular views of the Capay Valley. The land on both sides of Road 53 is private, but Road 53 is public and ours to enjoy. Stay on the road and don’t venture onto private property. Take plenty of water and lots of pictures.

3. When the weather gets really hot, deliver Popsicles to the road crews working on the Davis streets or to the city staff behind the desk at Community Services (the same place you turn in your city of Davis “Nutcracker” applications. Nobody deserves Popsicles from Davis parents more than they do).

4. Cool off with a fresh peach milkshake at Whitey’s Jolly Kone in West Sacramento (1300 Jefferson Blvd.). We guarantee that any ice cream joint that spells cone with a “K” is going to be good.

5. Just when your kids are starting to be a little homesick for school, have them organize their friends for a campus beautification afternoon. Visit your school and pick up every single piece of litter. Make it a game and give little prizes to the kids who pick up the most or the heaviest or the biggest or the tiniest trash. End the day with kickball and root beer floats.

6. Learn how to make apricot jam. I asked my sweet neighbor, Beth, for her recipe. She gave all the credit to Ball: https://www.ballmasonjars.com/blog?cid=fresh-apricot-jam-0

7. Spend a morning handing out cupcakes to people leaving the DMV. Tell them “Happy birthday!” (Drivers’ licenses expire on birthdays, forcing people to go to the DMV to renew. Chances are good that the DMV visitor just celebrated or soon will be celebrating a birthday. They will be astounded that you knew they were having a birthday and they’ll smile at the treat.)

8. Go to a drive-in movie: West Wind Drive-In Theater, 9616 Oates Drive, Sacramento https://www.westwinddi.com/Locations/Sacramento?date=07/10/2023

9. Tune up your bike at the Bike Garage behind the barn at The Cannery. When you’re done, take a spin on Davis’ 12-mile Bike Loop. https://www.thebikecampaign.org/bike-garage

10. Do the Davis city park tour and visit every park in Davis over the course of the summer. Go to cityofdavis.org and search “parks.”

11. Before you head over to Wednesday’s Picnic in the Park, visit the Hattie Weber Museum, 445 C St. Ask lots of questions. Maybe they’ll let you join in a round of Scrabble.

12. Go flower-picking. For a perfect date or family outing, gather your old jelly jars and drive past Woodland to the little town of Yolo. Continue north on the frontage road for a couple of miles to Mezger Family Zinnia Patch. Follow the blue boxes and arrows to their new location (11990 Road 96). Fill up your jars with flowers and deliver them to a neighbor or a stranger who could use cheering up. Flowers are ready for cutting. The flowers are free, compliments of the fun and generous Mezger family. https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100065560127424

13. Go treasure-hunting at Garrison’s in Williams (this one’s not actually in Yolo County, but close enough). When you’re done, walk across the street to Granzella’s and have a beer and pizza.

14. Eat Holy Rosary tacos at the Yolo County Fair (August 14 – 18). You only want to stand in line once, so order double what you think you’ll eat. Don’t worry. You’ll eat them.

15. When you get together with those cousins you see only every other summer, but never at Christmas, do this: Plan a surprise Christmas in July. When everyone goes to sleep, set up the artificial Christmas tree with lights and your favorite ornaments. Put wrapped presents for everyone under the tree. Play Christmas music. When everyone wakes up, open presents in your pajamas and then have a big holiday breakfast together. Take lots of pictures.

16. Visit Blue Diamond Almonds gift shop (1701 C St. in Sacramento) and taste all the different and new flavored almonds.

17. Make a decision right now to help your favorite Davis organization represent with a float in the Picnic Day Parade on April 20. Mark your calendar. Spend an hour with your group and discuss a theme. Email me at dunningsm@gmail.com with the subject line Parade Float and I’ll send you the parade entry application when it becomes available in January.

18. Prepare a really elegant picnic dinner for someone you love. Set it up in the Elliot Weier Redwood Grove in the UC Davis Arboretum. There are picnic tables along the creek and parking close enough to transport your dinner. Bring a linen tablecloth, battery-operated candles and a simple gourmet dinner. And good wine. Fabulous.

19. In August, when the trucks full of tomatoes are rumbling up and down Highway 113, take a load of neighborhood kids out to a tomato field. Watch as the huge harvester rocks its way through the rows of plants, pulling up whole tomato vines.

The vines, tomatoes, dirt and all, bounce along on a conveyor belt, freeing the tomatoes to head up a chute where they are launched into the air and then tumble into the accompanying trailer.

If you want the full experience, go late at night and bring a big bag of burgers to the hungry workers (FYI, the night shift gets a lunch break at midnight.)

20. And finally, if you choose to spend your summer days reading books in your backyard hammock, check out all the local authors’ works at the Mary L. Stephens Branch Library, The Avid Reader and Logos Books. Davis is full of talented authors. Their books will mystify, provoke and instruct you. Some will make you laugh out loud and others will pull at your heart strings. And all of them will widen that beautiful horizon beyond our most relevant little town

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