Over the Rainbow Bridge

On May 26th, 2023, I wrote that my kids would meet me at the Jack London Square train station for our annual bike trip to Folsom. I grabbed everything and made certain I had things I needed before riding to Civic Center to get a coffee. However, it turned out the train to Merritt Lake was coming so I hopped a ride to Oakland and rode to 12th and onwards to Bicycle Cafe instead.

At the station, I got the bicycles for the boys out of a locker and re-factored all of our bags. Then I got tickets and discovered the train actually left at 9:57 and not 830 – so I was way early. The boys were a bit late because their mom had taken a wrong turn but it no longer mattered because we had to wait an hour and a half anyway. She took the boys to get hot cocoa and surprised me with second cup of coffee when they returned. While we waited we saw the Coast Starlight which had a fancy Pullman attached.

When it was time, we said bye to the moms and boarded our Capital Corridor train with no problem. The boys drew cute pictures and I posted to Twitter until we got to Davis. Then we discussed the trip and we got ready. We got off the Capital Corridor at Sacramento Valley Station.

One of the boy’s bungees got stuck on his wheel on the platform but it was OK. They also helped me load my bulky GSD onto a Sacramento Transit train and on the ride to Folsom the boys wrote in their notebooks. I estimated the time to Folsom for the boys so they could understand how long it would take. I also re-packed

When we got to Folsom we rode to the historic town center to get treats before going over the rainbow bridge. We entered the campground through the back entrance and the boys set up their tent with no trouble. When we were ready, we looked at the lake on my cargo bike without all of our bags and had dinner at a restaurant in Granite Bay. We rode home to brush teeth and wind down at the campsite.

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.