She's baaaack!

As the said in the movie Poltergeist, I'm back.  I certainly hope I'm not as scary as the images in that movie, but from some of my shots I'm not too sure. The first photo of the trip wasn't even taken in San Francisco.  We got in somewhat late and were tired and I didn't even take a shot in the city.  The only picture I have is this one of me...

taken in a mirror in a restaurant on the way to San Fran. Pretty crazy, huh? Spend the night in the Ritz Carlton, where the room was really nice, there was a lovely executive lounge on our floor with the best food you could imagine, and a great view and I took zero pictures of it. Tired or excited, I'm not sure which.

I did remember to take a picture of Sister in the Emeryville train station, looking as cute as ever.

Once we boarded the train, I remembered I had a camera...

Here you see Sister Peri, (dressed for comfort in flannel) adjusting the reading light. We had planned on doing a lot of reading and sketching while on the train.

Here is a shot of us both together, taken in the mirror on the door that used to open up to connect the rooms...

I wish I had noticed my shoulder bag sitting on the seat, but alas there it is in all it's glory, taking away from the very loveliness that this photo was supposed to show (us, get it?) Seriously though, after looking at the door (which was closed with packing tape), we ask our attendant if he could open the connecting door and he said he would be glad to. So for the rest of the time on that train we had connecting rooms.  It was fun and made the space seem much larger.

Speaking of seeming larger, I can't decide if the size of the room made me look larger than life, or the other way around. Hmmm, I'm thinking a new weight loss plan is in my future.  I mean, really...when did I become this massive?

So far this post has been only about us, now hasn't it?  Well, it was a sister get together type trip anyway, but I did manage to take some pictures of the scenery.  In fact, I took over 500 photos during the course of the week.  Funny how some of the shots look so much better on the tiny viewer of the camera.  When I went to enlarge the shots of the eagles nest that we saw and the snow storm that was so pretty, the shots just somehow seem anti-climactic. 

So, with all that being said, remembering the trip and the fun that we had is what's important. It's not the fact that after all these years of fancy cameras and photography courses, I found it difficult to take a decent picture from a moving and bouncing train.

But here we go...

We saw a lot of this...

And a lot of this...

But we did see fun things like the San Francisco Bay...

and we saw the Suisun Bay and the Mothball Fleet...

We stopped in Martinez to pick up passengers...

 and a short time later we stopped in Davis. 

This is rail travel, folks.  You stop and go and you stop and don't go.  While you are stopped your shots look like this...

You then go really fast to make up for lost time and your photos look like this...

We had a great time, though and with seven days worth of photos to go thru, I'm sure you will understand if I do my little travelogue in segments.

As a tease for the next installment, I'll show you this and if you know what it's a picture of I just might give you a little gift for your smartness...

So that's it for a couple of days.  Hopefully I will be working on my pictures at a rate that will allow me to post a bit more often.  Till then, enjoy what I've had a chance to work on and please let me know if you have had the experience of rail travel. Inquiring minds want to know.

TTFN.