Thursday, May 06, 2010
Two Days in Pictures, Day Two: Traveling to Sacto and Back
You thought I’d forgotten about our little deal, didn’t you? Okay okay don’t gloat, I had excuses, as I always do, but this time they were really good ones - lots of meetings for Z’s impending graduation from pre-school (yeah, but after 2 years there, it’s like 40% of his life and we’re gonna do it up right for the boy), the final conclusion - finally - of the getting-into-kindergarten saga (way too much drama but a happy ending), getting a new computer for the back of the house, getting new glasses, all kinds of craziness at work with my now being a union dude and having special new other-peoples’ problems to deal with, and a load of other crap you don’t EVEN want to know about.... but enough about that. Let’s go back to April 26, a day that will live in… hm, what’s the opposite of infamy? A day that will live in famy, I guess. It was lobby day, which I celebrated by avoiding my building’s lobby and going instead to the lobby of a few train stations and a few legislator’s offices. It was a good time, and potentially a constructive one, but the best part of all as far as you’re concerned, you image-starved webzombie, was that I took public transportation the whole way and took a camera and took - a lot of photos! Some didn’t even suck, so I’ll share them with you..... now.. (a click’ll swell’em right up for ya.)
mothball fleet
On the ride east, we went past the hundreds of old navy vessels moored in the north part of the bay. Soon they’ll be carefully dismantled, to stop them from rusting away into the water completely. For now, it’s a sight that is, for me, both sad and inspiring at once.
railstation benchend
I was pleased to arrive in Sacto at a real train sation - not some cinderblock emplacement that was put up as some transit-planner’s afterthought, but a palatial masonry structure that clearly once witnessed the romance of rail travel when that was not an ironic term. When people waited there, they got to wait on wooden benches that were proud to stand by the tracks. This design is incised on the ends of each bench, and fit right in with the overall aesthetic.
railstation awningprop
Outside the station were massive theater-type awnings, richly ornamented and suspended from metal rods that, today, would be little more than glorified re-bar, but back in the original day (O.D.) they were decorative and visually stimulating. I rather liked the way the light played off the twists here.
bay ripples
On the train ride home, I particularly liked these tiny, perfectly-spaced little wavelets. On the calm, flat water it had a very serene, geometric feel.
waterfront property
Heading toward Benecia there are a lot of run-down industrial sites. This one in particular seemed evocative, with the two bridges and big transmission towers looming over the desuetude of the shack on the pier. It was a tricky shot, what with the interior reflections off the train window and the constantly-changing framing as the train rounded the bend, but I think this mostly captures it....
Benecia Bridge pier
This is a big, or “big-ass,” bridge. Well, not the whole bridge, you understand. Just where it goes into the water. Inviting, no?
Berkeleyffiti
As the train rolled ever closer to Oakland, these images were among the hundreds or thousands spraypainted brightly on the flat faces of the soundwalls and security fences lining the tracks. I don’t supposed many people see them without riding the train, and I doubt that many who do ride very often notice.
new bay bridge
Finally, from the window of the bus that took me from the train depot (hardly a station, now that I’d seen Sacramento’s) in Emeryville back to San Fran, here is a view of the dual roadbed of the new bay bridge, or that part of it being constructed to replace the east span that broke in the ‘89 quake. This new one looks pretty sturdy. Anyway, one must hope.
That’s all I’ll bother you with for now. The words are piling up in my notebook. I guess you’d better brace yourself for some of that good stuff next.
