Highlights of the last few days: Thursday  Walking to the Mill Valley public library along back streets. Lots of hills/stairs so it was a good workout. Seeing adorable front gardens. Friday Attending a friend (and former CCCBA BOD member)’s judicial investiture. So wonderful to see her being honored for all her hard work and accomplishments…

Every time I come back home after a trip away, especially my last couple of big trips away that have been far from an ocean, I head out to Tennessee Valley beach, one of the beaches of my childhood. Muir beach and Stinson were also prominent settings for my childhood and teenage ventures to the…

I haven’t posted anything since I got back from Canada. It’s taking me some time to adjust to being back in the Bay Area, though I haven’t ventured too far from home. Friday I spent the day doing laundry, going through mail, running errands, basically doing all those returning-home type chores. One of the things…

When we went to sleep on Wednesday night we were expecting to wake up in Vancouver as our train was running slightly ahead of schedule. But, when I woke up at 6:30 and saw that we were stopped in a canyon of evergreens I knew that we definitely were not in Vancouver. Turns out there…

I woke up as we were pulling into Jasper and had a couple of hours to walk around. Not much was open, though there was a fantastic coffee shop where I got a large latte that was absolutely enormous! I walked around town and took pictures of the surrounding mountains, totem pole and chatted with…

Got up a little bit later this morning, but still woke up in time to see the day starting to lighten, then went up to the dome car and enjoyed a gorgeous sunrise. It’s migration time for the snow geese, we saw hundreds of birds flying together in the sky or stopping for a snack…

I woke up around 5 o’clock this morning, we had moved to the central time zone, though because I don’t have Internet my phone hadn’t updated to the correct time. I listened to my audiobook for awhile – I am listening to Matthew Perry‘s autobiography, Friends, Lovers and the Big, Terrible Thing. It’s fascinating how many…

 got up and out of the Airbnb with my usual travel worries that the train will be canceled or late or there will be other issues getting to Union station on time, but everything worked out well. I got my bag checked in and got my meal time assignments for lunch and dinner and went…

The temperature has dropped quite a bit, going from 82 on Thursday to 70 on Friday and the high today is predicted to be 60, so definitely heading into fall weather. As I walked around the neighborhood I’m staying in I realized that many of the large houses are actually duplexes, and often have completely…

I woke up in time to see the dawn this morning, gorgeous red clouds in the sky. After packing up, I walked to the train station past the car art, the 1976 Olympic flame sculpture (that is the first Olympics I watched on tv- I’ll never forget Nadia Comaneci), and the Dendrites sculptures. I don’t…