Museums & Galleries in North Highlands

A pilot sinks into her cockpit, buckles up, checks the controls, and gets ready for takeoff. The engine hums to life and soon the ground rolls beneath her, until she lifts away and the buildings nearby shrink to the size of dust motes. But there's something unusual with the scene: the pilot isn't old enough to see a PG-13 movie let alone pilot an aircraft. That's because the Aerospace Museum of California doesn't let age become a barrier to flight. Children of all sizes climb into airplanes, pilot virtual jets in simulators, and experiment with the physics of flight while adults do the same, exploring the history of aviation both on Earth and beyond.

More than 37,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor exhibits chronicle everything from the very first airplanes made of cloth and wood to futuristic Mars-destined craft made of space-wood. Some of the museum’s prize possessions include the McDonnell-Douglas A-4C Skyhawk I, better known as one of the Blue Angels’ stunt rides, and the Grumman F-14D Tomcat, just like the one co-starring in the 1986 film Top Gun. The Fun with Physics exhibit hammers home the idea of hands-on learning, letting young engineers play with simple machines, whereas the engine room dishes up eye-candy for motorheads, including specimens from 1910’s Le Rhone to the marvels that propelled the Titan rockets.

Make up for the ill-fated model-train competitions of your childhood by celebrating National Train Day in style. You'll board the locomotive in full Victorian regalia at the Sacramento Southern Railroad ticket office in Old Sacramento and embark on an epic 40-minute journey through the central California wilderness. Amid the train's historic 1920s-era El Dorado luxury car, your 6-mile round-trip ride will transport you along the edge of the Sacramento River in the style of politicians and highfalutin VIPs of bygone days. The air-conditioned cabin boasts plush ruby sofas and expansive windows for taking in the panoramic views while enjoying complimentary lemonade and cookies.

The California Automobile Museum weaves the story of the automobile's birth and development through a gleaming collection of cars that dates back to the 1880s. Guests meander through 72,000 square feet of luxury and muscle vehicles, from pre–Model T Fords and green vehicles to Lamborghinis and modern NASCAR vehicles. In addition to its permanent collection and current exhibits, the museum's displays are always changing due to donations from private collectors and the hot rod fairy, allowing visitors to see a varying display of vehicles on different visits. Guests can also visit the gift shop stocked with auto-centric goodies, including car-related fine-art photography, T-shirts, kids' arts and crafts, and die-cast models of classic cars.

Largely self-taught, Shannon Jane Morgan has spent the last 19 years firing up her furnaces and creating delicate, one-of-a-kind works of glass art as the owner and founder of Girl Glass. Her pieces include gracefully curved vases; pigment-dappled paperweights; and whimsical, translucent pumpkins. In private classes, Morgan shares her years of carefully cultivated expertise with students, delving into the nuances of molten glass with tutorials on blowing, shaping, and creating goblets strong enough to survive an operatic high note.

The nonprofit Heidrick Ag History Center harvests the rich history of agricultural machinery and transportation through an extensive collection of vintage tractors and trucks. The 130,000-square-foot space houses both the Hays Antique Truck Museum—home to such artifacts as a one-of-a-kind Breeding steam-powered truck and broccoli steamer from 1916—and the Fred C. Heidrick Antique Ag Collection, an assemblage of olden-day iron horses and golden cows collected over a period of 60 years.

Using skills acquired from his childhood days building his own planes and combines from scraps of wire and wood, Mr. Heidrick himself restored most of the equipment—some of which was formerly little more than heaps of rust—to its original condition. Palettes of green, red, and yellow pop from John Deere tractors from the 1930s to the 1950s, a Deering reaper machine from 1891, and a 120-horsepower Holt built in 1917 to tow artillery during World War I.