Sacramento has it all.
Too many private lakes to remember them all. Let’s see: Liberty Lake, Pleasant Oaks, Redwood Shores, Liquid Zone, Bell Acqua (3 lakes and home to the 2011 Regionals), Stillwater, Winchester Lake (Sac Water Ski Club), Jovia’s Pond, Lang Lake, Shortline Lake, Sunset Ranch, Coyote Lake. I’m sure I’ve missed some too. All within about 30 minutes of downtown. Many offer memberships of varying types. Google most of them for more info.
Â
You can water ski year-round, but it’s cold (in the 50’s) from mid/late Nov to the end of Feb usually. We normally don’t ski Dec Jan & Feb just to take some time off. Tournaments start the 1st week of June and you can ski in one (or two or three) almost every weekend until late Sep. Nice sites with friendly people.
Â
Lake Tahoe is about 2 hrs away and has world class snow ski resorts. Squaw Valley (site of the 1960 Olympics), Alpine Meadows, Heavenly Valley, Northstar at Tahoe, Sierra at Tahoe and a bunch of smaller resorts. Weekend traffic can be heavy especially if it’s stormy. South Lake Tahoe and Reno (a little farther east) have Harrahs, Harvey’s, MontBleu and more casinos/hotels if you want to gamble.
Â
San Francisco is about 2 hrs west with all it’s attractions. The Pacific ocean is an easy day-trip as well.
Â
If you wanted to visit Horton in Bakersfield/Arvin it’s a 4 hr drive south down I-5. Of course, why you’d want to do that is a bigger question!