Don't you hear the whistle blowing?

I need to get out more. Not having a car means that I don't escape the City very often unless I have a really good reason, and most little reasons just don't warrant the pain in the ass in figuring out public transit or spending the money on a carshare or rental car. But when I do venture forth, I'm reminded of all the good stuff in striking distance of SF and of all the exploring I have yet to do.

As I type this, for example, I'm clattering down the rails onboard a train headed west-southwest from Sacramento, sun streaming in my window. And it was only a minor pain in the neck. My good friend Jeff moved to the Sac a couple months ago and I hadn't visited him since I helped haul his crap up there to begin with (me following behind the u-haul in his jeep, so full of stuff I could only use the driver's side mirror, with Lulu the cat climbing on my head, as freaked out as I was on the highway).

Anyway, this weekend was as good as any to finally make good on my promise to visit so I took Amtrak up after work Friday and spent two days in ridiculous heat remembering why I like the coast. But otherwise it was like old times, hanging out, running crazy errands at garden centers, Home Depot, Target, with a few hours in an ER waiting room thrown in for good measure.

Sacramento isn't all bad, as it turns out. Some good bars (gay and otherwise), restaurants, shops, and such, and we spent a few hours in Old Town which was like traveling back in time. Right on the river, cut off from the sprawl by a freeway, sits a stretch of cobbled streets, wooden sidewalks, railways and original buildings from the 1800s that could be a movie set except for the cars and fat kids with their ice cream cones. I'd actually like to explore a little more of the city sometime, since it has such an interesting history, but I'll be waiting til the crazy summer heat dissipates. Gaack.

So now I'm staring out over the expanse of the Central Valley, broad and flat and shimmering in the heat, the Coastal Range rising in the blue distance ahead. We pass over canals and deep green fens overgrown with horsetails and swampgrass where startling white egrets fly between the low branches of overhanging trees. Further out, a jackrabbit tries briefly to outrun the train but dives into the furrows between the sunflower and strawberry fields. Hawks are turning lazy circles in the bleached sky that is faded and yellowing at the edges like an old newspaper. A grouse flees into the golden straw of a fallow field. In places it could be the heart of Nebraska, but for the occasional Canary Island palm tree or fan palm sprouting in the farmyards; and instead of Siberian elms or cottonwoods there are oak and eucalyptus stands. Bright blooms of oleander grow high along the tracks in places. Old telegraph poles parallel the tracks for a stretch, now barren and wireless, leaning at treacherous angles near collapse.

As we close in on the Bay Area, people are replacing the wildlife: near Fairfield & Suisun City several vagrants are lingering in the narrow strip of shade from a sole palm tree next to a power substation and a few rusted-out boxcars. We cross water again at Benicia, passing by graveyard rows of rusting ships, and dilapidated brick factory buildings near Crockett. The sulfurous smell of refineries wafts through the car as the delta widens into the Bay.

And finally, the train rounds a bend and I see the familiar grey wisps of fog hanging low to the horizon across the water. The Bay Bridge arcs into oblivion where the City's skyline is barely visible in its cloak of cloud, grey beneath but blindingly white above where the setting sun glares off the top of the fog bank. I'm already pulling out my jacket, eager to greet the cool welcome breeze when the train pulls in.

Maybe I don't need a car afterall.