Summer Guide 2018: Here’s to the heat

Look at it this way: The essential element, the thing that makes summertime summertime, is heat. As we all know, that is something Sacramento gets a whole lot of. If you think about it, that makes Sacramento the best place to experience summertime.

Heat makes the ice cream taste sweeter. It makes the beer more thirst-quenchingly quaffable. It makes a gin and tonic more of a tonic. Heat makes swimming holes more paradisicle. Heat makes beautiful people walk around three-quarters naked. Etc.

This is why we love summer. Also, because when we were little kids, summer meant freedom, and we still have that feeling hard-wired in our bodies, minds and hearts.

Heat, obviously, can also get oppressive and downright painful, which makes getting out of town feel so much better. So, naturally, we have a guide in here of places to go that are not Sacramento.

Lots of creative people have evolved lots of ways to deal with the heat here in Sacramento, and this issue of SN&R is a celebration of that stuff.

—Eric Johnson, ericj@newsreview.com