My sister got up a bit after me. We started breaking down the tents while the boys were eating. That was around 830. We were wearing jackets, but it got warm quickly.
I checked the updated departure info for the trip. The boys disappeared into the campground by 10 but not before eating a bunch of marshmallows. We put the tents in the driveway to air out and I basically finished the backpacks after having the boys stuff their sleeping bags.
I managed to figure out the bags and the tent. Eventually, I got it all, but it was really late. My sister did a lot to help and agreed to drive us to the train. There was room for all of us in her pickup. My bag rolled around on Donner Pass Road, but we made it fine. As she got ready to leave, my sister told the boys to call her “Tia.”
After we waved bye to my sister, we had a snack. I gave the boys some box drinks. I told them that we were getting rid of the bag of rocks they had collected, and they refused. Then, not even ten minutes later, they left the bag at the Chamber of Commerce store.
As we were due to wait for a while until our train arrived, we did a lot of sitting around the station. One of the reasons for the wait was the track work. This was confirmed by the parade of rail workers passing the station on the mainline. I noted that when they left the railyard nearby in their individual rail work cars, each one had a siren they ran as they crossed the local streets. I took pictures.
After the rail crew had departed around noon, I took the boys to the local shops and a café. The boys were very well behaved, and I took in the view. A bit later we hung out at the station as the train approached. The boys found their bag of rocks, but I got rid of them as we were touring the station’s different offices and the museum.
The boys were slacking when the train showed up but it took a while so I noted that in retrospect, I overreacted by rushing. Once on board, I let the boys go to the café car, but had to grab a couple of things, so I almost missed Coldstream Canyon for photo ops. However, we had a great time climbing to Donner Pass.
We sat in the observation car almost until we got to the town of Baxter. Some lady from Illinois peppered my boys with questions while we ate sandwiches from the cafe car. Later, we returned to the café car for beef stew since the train was so late. I tried to take a nap then but wasn’t successful. We finished the trip in the café car after the Sacramento break outside. The sunset was amazing over the Vaca mountains.
At Martinez we packed up and at Richmond I took the boys downstairs. The boys were displeased with the Amtrak at this point and boarding our connecting bus and catching the 14 were really hard. Later, I let them play video games as I put stuff away.
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.
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