General Notes, Nothing Very Specific This Time

So the committee signed with the Arden West Hilton, located off the Capitol City Freeway (CapCity to us locals) (aka Business 80) & Arden Way. Many of the attendees of the last Westercon in Sacramento will recognize the area, if not the buildings.

Now that we know where we will be, I can focus on eateries and activities in this area (although nothing in Sacramento is very far from anywhere else.)  There are two rivers that get in the way sometimes, thanks to the limited number of bridges crossing them, but they do provide interesting habitat for the local wildlife.

Using the hotel as the center of a 5-mile diameter circle, there are about a jillion-skillion places to eat. I'm going to post reviews of as many as I can up to the convention date. I will be including driving miles, bus routes, etc., and I will keep this listing updated.

There is food in the hotel, of course, and a bar. I will be considering them in the future.

Off-site Food--East of the Freeway and Hotel, Arden Way 

To start with, Arden Fair shopping mall is just on the other side of the freeway from the Hilton. (The hotel website claims it's 2 blocks, and that's true. But those blocks go underneath the freeway and past a large parking lot. Call it about 1.5 miles.) There are some good eateries at the mall as well as in the food court. Market Square is a "companion development" located on the other side of the mall parking lot, and it has its own food court as well as a couple of nice sit-down restaurants in the moderate price range.

The south side of Arden Way has a number of sit-down establishments, many of them the usual shopping mall chains. (Olive Garden, Coco's, Hooter's...). There are others, too, which will be covered in the future.

Fast-food places abound, of course. In the Arden Fair/Market Square lot is a Burger King with one of the area's Freestyle Coca-Cola dispensers. (If you are unaware of this innovation, poor you. It dispenses over 100 flavors of Coke products, including several variations of Power-Ade. The machines are at many Burger Kings and Wingstops in our area, as well as Dos Coyotes and Godfather's Pizza. It's currently the only wayI can feed my Secret Vice, Peach Fanta Zero.) There is a Panda Express in both Arden Fair and Market Square food courts.

OK, enough for this installments. Next time, we start to get specific.