Saturday, January 07, 2006

On The Train to Reno, Part 1

Note to My Loyal Readers: Sorry for screwing up your computers when you tried to get to this blog. My loving Domestic Partner got a little too cute with some code. Now we can get on the train.



From the Amtrak station in Emeryville...



...the weekly Reno Fun Train departs every Friday during the winter.



Most of the train was occupied by people being rewarded for gambling too much at Harrah's Casino...



...but there were quite a few of us who had bought a ticket through Key Holidays (click here to get to their site)...



...an outfit out of Walnut Creek...



...catering to railway afficionados.



The train trip starts along the San Francisco Bay...



...and passes by the unholy Chevron refineries...



...that pollute the entire Bay Area.



There are plenty of oil tankers...



...loading up in the Carquinez Strait...



...near the town of Martinez.



New bridges were going up over the Strait...



...that looked like engineering marvels.



Mothballed warships sat dumbly in the delta beyond.



They should probably be melted down to make more bridges.



The recent floods and the levee break near Fairfield...



...had submerged quite a bit of property.



Still, it only made the Suisun slough...



...look that much more beautiful.



The train glided through the middle of the marshland...



...surrounded by water on all sides.



As we neared Sacramento...



...there was suddenly a thick tule fog...



...that created an eerie scene...



...that looked rather like a primeval drowned world.



Not long before arriving in Sacramento, the fog started to clear.



We crossed the Sacramento River downtown, and then chugged along through the depressingly ugly suburbs of the capital town...



...before the trip became even more beautiful.

2 comments:

  1. Hi, not sure if you realize, but since the other day, when viewing your blog from bloglines, I am prompted more than several times for a userid and password from imac.disk. It pretty much locks me up.

    I don't have that problem when viewing your blog directly (but I rarely view blogs that way anymore).

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous9:48 PM

    i had the same problem. Grrr. I needed my Mike blog fix. So now it works fine and I can stop worrying I've forgotten an essential password and I'm happy. Great pix. I've always wanted to take the train to Reno during a blizzard. Well, maybe a mini-blizzard, I wouldn't want the train to get snowed in.

    ReplyDelete