We’ve got about an hour to kill, as we wait here in Martinez for the train up to Seattle. Both my wife and son are fast asleep, as it’s long past their bedtimes. I myself would love to take a little nap, but I really don’t want to have to wait until almost 11pm tomorrow night, should we miss our train. So I guess I need to think of something to keep my mind occupied, and do enough smoking to last me until the morning.

I wish I could board a train and find at least one car dedicated to tobacco usage. It would be nice. And you could deal with the issue of second-hand smoke by opening up the connections between cars. Just have some sort of ventilation in the (now accurately named) breezeway.

The last time I took a train along this line was two weeks shy of twelve years ago. I was on my way to move in with my best friend due to promises of palm trees. It was in the high 30’s and rainy when I left Seattle, and 60 or 70 and sunny when I arrived in Emeryville.

UPDATE: Our train has been delayed due to some nonsense further down the line. There’s no E.T.A. until the situation us resolved. This basically puts us in an uncomfortable position: The train either needs to get here by 2:45am tomorrow, or not get here until around 7am. Anything in between and we’re going to be stuck in downtown Seattle waiting for the ferries to start running again. Might be time for that nap, after all.