Sacramento, and judging HackDavis

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 10:00:00 -0400

Trip: Sacramento + Davis, California · May 9–10, 2026 · solo · judging at HackDavis

I was invited to be a judge at HackDavis, the student hackathon at UC Davis, just outside Sacramento. So I turned it into a weekend: a day exploring Sacramento, then a day of judging.

Getting there

It was an early start: up at 4:30 AM for a 7:15 flight out of JFK, with a change in Minneapolis, landing in Sacramento around lunchtime.

The night before had not gone to plan. At about 11 PM my Airbnb host cancelled on me, so at around 1 AM, a few hours before my alarm, I was booking a room at the Governors Inn instead. It worked out fine. I dropped my backpack there and went straight out to walk.

A slower kind of city

Sacramento felt calm right away. People were relaxed and moving slower, it was a sunny 89°F, and there were convertibles driving by with music playing. The houses are mostly one or two storeys, with lots of open space, so the city spreads out instead of up. It’s the opposite of New York in almost every way, and it was a nice change for a day.

The California State Railroad Museum

My first stop, and the best one of the day, was the California State Railroad Museum in Old Sacramento. There were so many trains. I finally understood how steam locomotives actually work, and how hard it was to build the railroads and tunnels through the mountains. A lot of that work was done by Chinese workers who came over to build them. Walking around it, I kept thinking about how much ingenuity went into all of it.

A locomotive in the mountain-pass gallery.

Laying the track, by hand.

They even have the silver from the old dining cars, laid out as if dinner was about to be served.

From the museum I walked along the river to the Tower Bridge, the golden lift bridge over the Sacramento River.

I’d planned to go to the Crocker Art Museum next, but I got there at a quarter to five, too late to go in. (I came back for it on Sunday.)

An evening walk

From there I walked through Fremont Park to the R Street area, where I had dinner. After dark I looped through Capitol Park to the State Capitol, all lit up.

The Capitol, around 9 PM.

Then I finished back on the river in Old Sacramento, where the Delta King, an old paddle steamer that’s now a hotel, was lit up along the water.

The Delta King.

Judging HackDavis

On Sunday morning I went straight out to UC Davis. The day started with a briefing in a lecture hall, and the judging itself was in the afternoon, in the arena at the University Credit Union Center. There were around 30 judges, each going from table to table with a scoring sheet while the student teams demoed what they’d built in a weekend. One of the categories I scored was Best Interdisciplinary Hack.

The arena, mid-judging.

Two projects I remember: Third Eye, a neighbourhood security camera that runs computer vision on the device itself, as a free alternative to Ring, and Anticipate, which tracks pests in real time so farmers can see them on a map of their fields. I’ve been on the other side of hackathons many times, as a participant and an organiser, and this time I was the one judging. I also met a few of the other judges and connected with some of them.

The Crocker, second try

After the judging I went back into Sacramento and made it into the Crocker Art Museum this time, with about 45 minutes before closing. It’s two buildings joined together: a modern white pavilion, and the original Crocker family mansion, with painted ceilings, columns and a grand wooden staircase.

Inside the old mansion.

The new wing.

Sunday evening Mass

From the Crocker I went to the evening Mass at St. Stephen the Martyr. It was a traditional Latin Mass, and it was the first time I’d seen women wearing chapel veils in church. It was Mother’s Day, and the homily was about gratitude to mothers and about Mary.

Frank Fat’s, and the red-eye home

Before my flight I had dinner at Frank Fat’s, right across from the Capitol: chicken, vegetables and rice. I only found out later that it’s a Sacramento institution. It opened in 1939, and it’s famous among politicians, including for a 1987 deal California legislators supposedly worked out on a napkin there.

The Capitol again on Sunday evening, near Frank Fat’s.

Then I took the red-eye back to Newark and was home Monday morning.

What I took from it

Sacramento made one thing clear to me: I’m a city person. I like having lots to go out and do, and that’s why New York suits me. But I can see the appeal of slowing down somewhere like this one day.

Notes to myself

Check museum closing times. The Crocker closes at 5, and I only got in on the second try.

hackdavis on Aldrin Jenson