Kenny and I love trains. And one of our favorite rides is on AMTRAK's Capital Corridor from our home, Martinez, to Sacramento, California's capital. It's a ride we like to make for our anniversary. This year, we marked Number 26 in our usual way.
One of our first views came as we crossed the stretch of the Sacramento River at its Carquinez Straits. Beyond the glimmering water are the hills on which our horses, Sway the Limit and Ginger, roam. We had just left the Martinez station, off to the left. Our celebration had begun.
Train rides soothe us. Kenny is working in Southern California. He's working with folks who love having him around. He's getting a chance to direct, and soon may get some voice assignments. Many of the characters he is drawing are those he designed while he worked at DNA Productions in Texas, so like his co-workers, these are old friends. But it's still stressful for him to be so far from home.
I've been dealing with up and down attendance in classes, a quest for more employment, a crisis at my church, and a nasty crack in one of Sway's hooves.
And the last one has stressed me the most. A quarter crack isn't as life-threatening as other situations in which horses can find themselves, but it's ominous enough. This crack, running from the coronet band to the hoof sole, is something like a fingernail that breaks from the cuticle to the tip - except that a horse stands on this "fingernail," and if complications occur, the crack won't heal. That's an ominous spectre.
Fortunately, like Kenny, I have good support - Mrs. Pamela Woods, my first instructor and constant trainer; Eric and Margaret Redmond, breeders of Arabian and Quarter horses who take better care of horses than nearly anyone I know; and a stack of horse care books and updated internet information to guide me. By the time I found a farrier to examine the hoof, initial healing was well on its way.
Kenny and I both needed a relaxing break, and it started with the train.
Our "anniversary suite" was aboard the Delta King. This old paddle-wheeler, along with its sister, the Delta Queen, used to take passengers from Sacramento to San Francisco. It had a rough life afterwards, but was rescued and restored. Docked permanently in Old Sacramento, it is a hotel, restaurant, night club and entertainment venue. It's also a great romantic get-away.
Kenny and I arrived early enough to take in some Old Sac sights before dinner. We stopped by the "Garden of Enchantment," a little emporium of crystals, books, bath salts and incense - definitely one of the best-smelling stores in the district. Three anniversaries ago, we decided to buy some raffia and bead friendship rings as souvenirs. They almost lasted the year. Last year, our 25th anniversary, we bought silver rings with shell inlay that, again, almost lasted the year. This year, we selected heavy-duty wooden rings. Kenny's is a deep brown with lovely grain. Mine is pale with swirls of terra-cotta, decorated with carved lines, circles and holes that remind me of Hawaiian kapa watermarks.
And as we wandered near the Delta King the next morning, we saw these birds. Mynah-kin, perhaps? I love the wild mynahs of Hawai`i; I love Warner Bros.' cartoon mynah. And these characters caught my affection as well.
While I was busy snapping shots of the Delta King and the birds, Kenny was focusing on the yard of the National Train Museum. He's piloted locomotives similar to the one he is photographing.
During our getaway, we also sat on the Delta King's deck to watch the trains cross the bridge above the Sacramento River, and smaller boats pass along the river below. The nightclub band provided just enough background music. So relaxing - just what the doctor ordered!
As a tribute to our honeymoon, we spent a little time watching the NASA channel. Our honeymoon included the first night launch of the Space Shuttle - the late Columbia. Discovery's night launch had taken place shortly before Kenny came home, so it seemed right that in Columbia's memory, we included this mission in our anniversary celebration.
We came home to a pleasant surprise. The Tioga Pass, a private rail car, came into the Martinez station shortly after we disembarked. This is one of my favorite types of rail cars, because its platform allows passengers to sit outside to enjoy the view. Originally part of the Canadian National, it primarily served in Alberta. Like the Delta King, it was sold, neglected and rescued, and like the Delta King, it has a new life entertaining tourists.
We extended our celebration with meals at two of our favorite restaurants, Mangia Bene, an astonishingly excellent Italian restaurant between the Petco and the KFC, and Hanabi, the Japanese restaurant that substitutes for Ebisu, the long-gone, kneel-down Japanese restaurant where Kenny and I got engaged and had our wedding reception.
The rest of our celebration was spent doing the usual household things. "Our house knows when I come home," Kenny joked as he re-shimmed the front door and repaired a spontaneous leak in the bath tub. We went out to the Pasture at the Top of the World to re-bandage Sway's hoof. We fed horses and cats and did laundry - mundane things couples do when they're together.
Then it was time for one more train trip. I took Kenny to the BART station for his trip to Oakland Airport. "It was tough leaving the Coliseum to take the BART bus to the airport, because the A's were playing, and I could hear the game!" Kenny said.
He arrived safely in San Diego, and is back at work at Omation. I'm back on the job search, preparing for the next round of classes, feeding cats, doing laundry and bandaging a split hoof. And so it'll go until Kenny heads home again.
We've noticed one thing that's changed - we're both looking at our new rings. A lot.
