Big City Vibes in the Big Tomato

City of Trees, Sactown, or just Sac—no matter what you call it Sacramento is coming up in a big way. Let's explore the capital of the Golden State with some help from the new Scion iA. It's best to do your exploring on a full stomach, so take advantage of Sacramento's proximity to the Central Valley and put Metro Kitchen + Drinkery (1104 R St.) into the iA's available nav system. Load up on a hearty farm-to-fork breakfast and juice before we meet up with our guide David Garibaldi.

David is a world-renowned performance painter who rapidly creates paintings during raucous stage acts scored by rock and roll. He's also a Sacramento local.

The art scene in Sac is a major reason for the city's renaissance. Affordable living, diverse cultures, and space to create makes this city prime for self-expression. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the city's Southside neighborhood.

You might be having too much fun to stop driving but pull the iA off the WX Freeway and check out Garibaldi's first stop—the massive 70,000 square foot mural titled Bright Underbelly. Conceived by local artists Sofia Lacin and Hennessy Christophel of LC Studio Tutto, the piece canvases the underside of a freeway overpass and mimics looking at the sky through a forest canopy.

Public works like this lend an airy atmosphere to a space that also hosts the Sunday Farmers Market (8 AM to noon). The market is nearly four blocks long and is one of the largest markets in the state. Good thing the iA has 13.5 cubic foot trunk—that's a lot of kale.

Music is another factor that drives not only Garibaldi's work but also Sacramento's cultural shift. To explore that you'll need to get the iA back on the freeway and go downtown. If you're feeling metropolitan you could head to the Philharmonic and Opera, but just a few blocks down the street you'll find Shine Coffee. Shine is a neighborhood gem where the locals come to play. You'll hear local artists of all styles and find the next track you want to bump through the iA's six-speaker sound system.

Sacramento built itself as a boomtown, and it's clearly booming again. Lively arts and music scenes only begin to tap the energy here, and the feeling in the streets is that this is just the beginning.