Weekend Recap

The past few days have been a jumble of friends, cats, cars, driving, locomotives, and rain. After Friday's hectic cat adventure, I took it easy on Saturday. I spent some time with my feline charges in the morning. They appeared to be acclimating to their temporary home as well as could be expected.

Later in the day I took a most enjoyable walk with Andrea and her friend Janet. Andrea seems to have brightened considerably after a week of relative relaxation.

That evening Sir zLog and I were treated to a ride in Sir rLog's new Volvo T5 Wagon, henceforth to be known as the Borkmobile. Although Sweedes everywhere are probably cringing at the Muppet reference, the silly folk around here heartily approve of the moniker.

Bob and I departed early Sunday morning for yet another event with the MG. This time the event was less about cars and more about trains. After meeting up with both the MGOC and the Sorry Safari Touring Society in historic Niles, we drove to Sunol to ride the Niles Canyon Railway. We had planned to ride the 11:15 steam train to Niles, but the club had already boarded the 10:30 diesel train. Although I was a tad disappointed that we were not taking the steam train, I enjoyed riding the rails.

Not knowing what the club had planned for the ride back, Bob and I followed some of the club members off the train, onto a restored 1950's GM Bus from the Pacific Bus Museum, and back into downtown Niles. We explored an antique shop for about a half hour before returning to the Niles Train Depot. Most of the club had apparently stayed on the diesel train; but, because of our brief sojourn in town, we got to ride the steam train back to Sunol. The steam train was a delight.

As a consequence of his grandfather's employment on the rails, Bob has a keen interest in, and knowledge of, trains. He drew my attention to a great many fascinating details that I overlooked. When I asked Bob why the engineer was blowing the whistle so often, he responded thusly: "Could you resist blowing the steam whistle if you had the chance?" He's got a point there.