Things to Do in Modesto

A charter member of the MLS, the San Jose Earthquakes played their first four seasons as the Clash before claiming the MLS Cup in 2001 and 2003. Though the team moved to Houston in '05, the franchise was reinstated in '08, bringing professional soccer back to the Bay Area. Buck Shaw Stadium serves as the team's current home, though a new stadium will shoot skyward in 2014, complete with luxury suites for fans and exhausted referees alike.

City Lights is an innovative, intimate (100 seats), nonprofit theater company that produces six main-stage plays per year. Each play runs for a five-week period with four shows per week. Coming up in the current season is a production of Billy Aronson's First Day of School, a farcical look at the behavior of suburbanites in autumn (September 23–October 24); an irreverent, interactive, and totally historically accurate play titled Abraham Lincoln's Big, Gay Dance Party (November 24–December 19); and the horseplay of the drama Equus (March 17–April 17), the winner of the 1975 Tony for Best Play and a favorite of horse whisperers and hoarse whisperers everywhere.

Today’s Groupon replaces your normal hands and feet with highly skilled climber appendages. For $35, you get five day-passes to Pacific Edge Climbing Gym, including climbing equipment rental and use of the facility's fitness equipment and sauna (a $93 value), plus a two-hour beginner or technique climbing class (a $31.50 value) and one yoga class (a $12 value), a $136.50 total value. Pacific Edge is co-owned and run by a staff of instructors with years of climbing and yoga experience, and was the Best Outdoor Sports School winner in 2009.2000 Feet: The nagging feeling that you’ve left your oven on is misguided. You haven’t. 5000 Feet: Breathing becomes labored; earthly memories fade. 10,000 Feet: Why does it smell like Christmas? 20,000 Feet: Weight of the treasured Elf Stones lifted only by inspiring visions of the Gates of Shamagor. 30,000 Feet: Break for lunch.

Led by former NBA point guard and first-year head coach Mark Jackson, the Golden State Warriors charge into the second half of the season. Veteran guard Monta Ellis blows by defenders with an average of 22.2 points per game while forward-center David Lee muscles out under-the-basket rivals for an average of 9.7 rebounds per game. Rookie guard Klay Thompson keeps opponents guessing with the ability to drop shots from all over the court and the inexhaustible supply of riddles he declaims during commercial breaks.

When The Retro Dome first opened its doors three years ago, it was with the knowledge that its life would be brief and yet explosive. From the start, the owners of the building planned to demolish it at some point in the future. Yet that didn’t stop the staff from making use of the former Century 25 Theater’s stadium-style seating, refurbished chairs, and massive dome. They decked out the interior with vintage, retro-modern décor, complete with a candy counter slinging Pop Rocks and JujuBees. The foreseeable, yet fuzzy ending has recently come into sharp focus, though. The Retro Dome will go dark on January 31, 2013, bringing to an end nearly four years of live music and sing-along cinema.

The next time you're on the roof of a five-story building, look down at the ground, and you'll get a rough idea of just how high people climb at Touchstone Climbing. The gym's seven locations feature lead walls that rise as high as 50 feet off the ground, though height isn't the only dimension that makes the space feel immense. Each spot has at least 11,000 square feet of climbing terrain, not to mention as much as 3,000 square feet of bouldering.

To prevent newcomers from feeling intimidated by the magnitude of the environment, the gym holds introductory classes. During these sessions, participants learn the basic techniques they'll need if they want to conquer the gym's crack systems and boulder problems. The classes are also an opportunity for students to scope out the terrain features at each location, such as Diablo Rock Gym's steep prow, which juts out crookedly like a thumbs up from a dizzy ballerina. While they're at it, the visitors might notice something else: the social nature of the gym. As the San Francisco Chronicle recounts, the fact that lead climbs require two people means that climbers are constantly asking around for new partners and chatting back and forth as they ascend.

Each location also boasts a weight room, cardio machines, and a studio space for everything from yoga to spinning to core classes.