Through Yuba Gap

On June 12 I wrote that that morning I woke to my alarm but fell asleep. Dad woke and said he had to go. I directed the boys to get dressed thinking I’d leave them with Dad but they ended up leaving first. Downstairs we got coffee and my older sister picked us up outback. It became evident the train was three hours late. Dad was feeling under the weather.

Since checking or holding the bags was not practical we left them in the lobby with dad. My sister dropped us off at First and West Streets where we got Italian sodas. We walked around downtown a bit and picked up a paper for dad. Only one of the casinos had any. After that we we returned to find my father in the lobby. A short while later my sister and my nieces showed up.

The train was further delayed by a special short cargo train from California. When we got on board we were further delayed and we were not able to get several seats together so of course they boys were irritating all of the other passengers. I had a window seat and my father had a window seat on the opposite side of the car but in the row behind me. The boys sat next to him straddling the aisle. It was a total pain to barely be able to see them behind me.

Fortunately, we had relocated to the observation car by the time we made it to Truckee. Dad went back to his seat with one of the boys and once we got to the pass he came back and the three of us sat in the observation car through Yuba Gap. My more talkative son sat with some lady near my father while the other stayed with me in the observation car and ate M&Ms.

They switched with one another a couple of times. By American Canyon we were dozing a little so I took pictures of the spectacle of the canyon from my seat. By Colfax, the boys were irritating everyone in the train again but my neighbor went to the observation car so I ended up sitting next to them until they fell asleep. Once they woke up, we all sat together in the observation car drinking beverages through Sacramento and Davis when I started writing.

This is an occasional series chronicling my life. This Notebook Analysis series is meant to be contemporaneous piece developed as an agglomeration of my notebook pages. In each of these posts I used my notes to develop my recent thoughts.