Reader in forest
Here’s Loyal Reader Number Two in the forest at Calaveras Big Trees State Park.
Greetings from the train! I checked my ticket and it’s been two months since I last rode. My boss still isn’t crazy about the fact I need to leave on a schedule, but I just respond with a completely logical, unimpeachable “so what?” Now who can argue with that?
The entire rail portion of the trip this morning was in the dark. The sun was just coming up as we got off the train and onto the bus. And it’s already down this afternoon. Winter. Sigh. At least it will be better next week when Daylight Savings Time is finally over.
Speaking of which, several people were an hour late to church last Sunday. They all had alarm clocks that automatically go into and out of DST. Since they changed the spring forward/fall back days this year, millions of alarm clocks are goofed up for three weeks a year. Strangely, my Atomic Clock didn’t change. Why? Who knows?
I’m listening to a Fibber McGee and Molly radio show on the iPod. Pretty good, but not as good as I expected based on past experience. I’ll give it a few episodes before I decide for sure. Coming up soon: The Shadow.
I don’t think I ever mentioned the last part of the trip to Michigan. It was the Loyal Mother’s seventy-fifth birthday, and my sister had invited me to surprise her. She was surprised. As discussed previously, I attended my nephew’s fiancee’s bridal shower (my first one!) on Saturday morning, Loyal Reader Number Sixteen’s Halloween party on Saturday night (I won the costume contest!), and the Loyal Mother’s birthday party (another surprise!) on Sunday evening. All were enjoyable. Monday morning, LRN16, my other non-Loyal-Reader sister, the Loyal Mother, and I went to Greenfield Village for a few hours. The weather was perfect – sunny and in the low 70’s – and we had a great time. I’ll have a picture or two to post soon.
The flight out was uneventful – made the connection in Chicago just fine. On the way home, though, we were seriously delayed leaving Detroit and I missed the connection to Sacramento. There were no more flights that night, but I was able to slip onto a San Francisco-bound plane. Got home at about 1:00 AM Tuesday morning. And my luggage made it at about 6:00 that afternoon.
Update from home: Just as I was getting ready to post this, an earthquake hit. It wasn’t the biggest one in the world, but it really shook us hard for a few seconds. Things were really swaying there. Fortunately, nothing seems to have fallen (all those shelves in the garage that I’ve been meaning to anchor to the wall are still up and not on top of the cars, for example) and the water’s still in the pool. Very unexpected event.
That’s about it for today. See you on Halloween.