FAIRFIELD — There are at least four good reasons to visit Fairfield and its next-door neighbor Suisun City: Go karting, jelly beans, kayaking, and trains.
The two cities don’t exactly come to mind when you think of tourism, but they do have a number of unique attributes besides being next to bustling Travis Air Force Base.
Its biggest claim to fame based on popular tour rankings is the Jelly Belly factory with its abundance of self-guided tours.
Jelly Belly produces more than 100 gourmet jelly beans ranging from root beer float to pinkie grapefruit.
Various combinations of Jelly Belly jelly beans create specific tastes as well.
Among the most popular are those combos that mimic specialty beers. To create the taste of a Coffee Stout Beer, as an example, you take three draft beer Jelly Bellys, a Chocolate Pudding Jelly Belly, and a Cappuccino Jelly Belly and pop them into your mouth at the same time.
There are plenty of tried-and-true combinations such as two green apple Jelly Bellys and a Cinnamon Jelly Belly that produces a candied apple taste when eaten together.
The visitors center is open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. with the self-guided tour from an elevated walk available from 9:15 a.m. to 4 p.m.
There is an $8 fee for adults, $4 for children 3 to 17, while those 2 and under are free.
For those over 6 years of age who can make it to the factory weekdays, given there is no production on weekends, you can enjoy an up-close tour of the factory floor and jelly bean production process that takes 90 minutes and start at $212 for groups up to six people.
The Jelly Bean University tours are scheduled Monday through Friday at 9:15 a.m., 11:30 a.m., and 1:30 p.m.
There is also a Chocolate Jelly Bean Shoppe and Fudge Counter, and wine tasting room, gift shop, Jelly Bean Cafe, Jelly Bean Art Gallery, and candy store.
For info go to jellybean.com/california-factory-tours.
Nitro City indoor
go kart racing
If you have the need for speed, check out Nitro City in Fairfield with what is arguably home to Northern California’s fastest electric karts that reach up to 45 mph at one of the largest indoor raceways.
There is also a black light 9-hole mini-golf course, ax throwing, a café that is a one-of-a-kind experience.
There is also an arcade, the Pixels interactive floor game and an “amped” up arcade.
For more information go to nitrocityracing.com or call 707-800-4900.
Suisun City accesses
unique brackish marshlands
Next door to Fairfield — and before you reach that city of 121,000 if you travel there via Highway 12 — is the smaller community of Suisun City.
It offers a unique water experience that you can’t find anywhere else.
It is made more enjoyable with a bustling waterfront complete with dining, specialized shopping, and more.
The Suisun Marsh is the largest remaining brackish marshlands on North America’s West Coast.
Its 116,000 acres is a hodgepodge of land, bays, and sloughs that are home to 221 species of birds, 45 species of mammals, 40 species of fish, and 11 species of reptiles.
What better way to enjoy the marshlands than gliding along the water in a single-person kayak or a stand-up paddle board.
Grizzly Waters Kayaking offers rentals and lessons from its location along the Suisun City Waterfront.
You can rent a kayak for $25 an hour, $70 for four hours or $80 for eight hours. Stand up paddle boards are $5 more.
If you are new to kayaking, they offer hour-long lessons for $50.
The gentle waters and relative absence of heavy motorized boat traffic — most boats just go to and from moorings passing through only a small segment of the marsh to reach the heart of the Delta — make Suisun Marsh a near ideal place to kayak or paddle board.
More information is available at grizzlywaters.com or by calling 707-341-6141.
A different type
of railway museum
Before you reach Suisun City and a ways after you’ve left Rio Vista traveling west on Highway 12 is the Western Railway Museum.
This is a different cat than the Sacramento Railroad Museum or Railtown 1897 in Jamestown.
That’s because the Western Railway Museum collection is centered on urban railroad street cars and electrified railroading in general.
The heart of its collection are cars from the Sacramento Northern Railroad, the Key System that ran in the East Bay and the pioneering San Francisco Municipal Railway.
There are 50-minute rides in the Interurban that departs at 11 a.m., 12:30 p.m., 2 p.m. and 3:30 p.m.
Fifteen-minute rides on street cars take place every 30 minutes between the starting time of the Interurban rides.
The rides are included in the price of the $18.85 admission ticket.
The 22-acre site includes 22 miles of track, a museum, static displays, and the Depot Cafe. There is a shady picnic area as the Western Railway Museum encourages guests to make a day of it and pack a picnic lunch.
For more information go to wrm.org or call 707-374-2978.
The relatively short drive to Fairfield – via Highway 12 off Interstate 5 just north of Stockton – is worth the trip in itself. It gives you a quick, nice cross-section feel for the Delta although a more quintessential Delta experience would be on a sleepy washboard levee road.
It includes driving on the iconic draw bridge across the Sacramento River just before you reach Rio Vista. With a little luck a sailboat — or if you’re real lucky an ocean freighter heading to and from either the port of Sacramento or Stockton— will be passing through.
For other Fairfield area attractions, including dining, go to visitfairfield.com.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
