Monday, July 27, 2009
Reliving the Magic: More Weekend Photos cuz there was More Weekend
Okay suckers, you got the first chapter of Weekend Recap - Phototastic Version yesterday - but you knew that was just a warm-up. The weirdness would get weirder. The cuteness would get cutesier. And Proud Mary would keep on burning. Just as soon as I got a chance to upload a few more photos. Which is happening even as I type these barely coherent words. So let’s get started with the photoblogification of the weekend just past:
We’ll start with something simple and straightforward: Zachary at his soccer class. Jesse, too, seems to enjoy these outings, and it’s all we can do to keep him from stomping his irrepressible way out onto the practice pitch. I’ll show you what I mean, but, those of you with cuteaphobia: AVERT YOUR EYES!
Later that Saturday, after a whirlwind session of housecleaning and forty-wink-taking, we hied our butts hence to the east bay for to see some visiting relatives and some relatives who actually live hereabouts but we all too rarely see. For purposes of pure edification and character development, then, please to enjoy: the Blattner meet-up!
Let’s skip ahead to the next morning. We arose early enough to enjoy a mouthful of gen-u-wine San Fran fog, drove across the Big Orange Bridge,
and headed up to Sonoma and the hallowed open-air halls of TrainTown - one-fifth the size of Disneyland and possessed of what they claim to be the most fully-developed scale steam train in the Americas. And do NOT forget, that includes Guyana AND Uruguay. DUDE. That is one damn well developed scale steamer, and you can keep the Cleveland. We rode the train,
visited the old western mockup village,
and even hit the dragon-coaster with Zach - twice.
(Kel is the one in the white hat… yeah, this one’s sort of more documentary than ottistic, but it’s my blog and you’re gonna get that sometimes. Suck it up.) Airhockey was played. A carousel was rid. Corndogs were consumed. A game of Ms PacMan was ignominiously lost. (Did you check your coat pockets?) “The Spirit of New Orleans” was repeatedly listened-to over omnipresent loudspeakers. And, perhaps most importantly, coupler knuckles were clearly identified:
As the sun crept over the yardarm, or whatever it is that trainfolk use to tell them it’s getting to be the afternoon, we took our leave of TrainTown and drove the rented Hyundai back down towards Frisco City. However, since we’d spent so much time entertaining the kids, Kel and I insisted on one side trip for our own gratification, to Cline Winery. We figured the kids, or the one of them who was still awake, anyway, would enjoy the ponds while we tasted a dozen or so tiny mouthfuls of delicious, delicious deliciousness. As it turns out, the ponds were even more fascinating to him than we’d anticipated.
And what, exactly was he watching so carefully? Ooh, the weirdness returns… Let’s zoom in real tight for a HIGH-DEF CARPTASTIC FREAKOUT!
Plus, they have a real-to-goodness bath house there - not like the ones here in town here where you arrive clean and go home so dirty your priest would slap you, but the kind where you arrive filthy with trail dust and creosote, and get just a tiny smidge less filthy by immersing your wretched self into murky but enclosed waters. That’s how they did it in 1877, anyway. And at Cline they’ve got the wall-carvings to prove it.
After that, we drove right back home, where the kids woke up the moment we put the car in “park.” Then they watched television and threw toys all about the house till we finally got them to go back to sleep again well into the evening. And that, my beloved lurkers, was enough of a weekend for me.
Ah, you caught me, didn’t you. You know we just had to replace our car because of a NOT OUR FAULT accident - so why am I driving a *rented* Hyundai? Well, it’s a funny story… Kel was driving the boys and me to Jesse’s day care, so I could drop him off and she could continue to Z’s preschool where she does the drop-off for him. Yeah, it’s a little complicated, but the point is, we were all four of us in the car at 7:45 in the a. freaking m., when, as we drove through an intersection where cross-traffic was controlled by a two-way stop sign, for god’s sake, someone decided she could sneak across in front of us and wound up ramming our front left wheel with her diesel Mercedes. Upshot: our car’s in the shop for two weeks and I am seeing a chiropractor. Hence the rental Hyundai. And the throbbing discomfort. Good thing the kids are unhurt and still very cute… and that life is still weird enough to distract me.... next up, eventually, more regular wordosity, probably. But I’ve got a site visit tomorrow that takes me next door to the world’s smallest mountain range, so let’s see if I get any inspiration up in Sutter County, shall we?
