Audrey Driving, or This Is Not A Kid Blog

[Had a great time up in Sonoma yesterday with the family. Sister Kate's going on a business trip, and with Bro-in-Law Mike tearing his hair out with work (figuratively; he makes bald look good), they thought to give the grandparents some quality time with the Niece Audrey. K. had to deliver the talky, towheaded package to my parents somehow, and I hadn't hung with the girls in a while, so she, she, and I all went up in the shockingly warm late morning in K.'s sensible-yet-stylish Prius.]

[Lunch was gobbled at my first pizza place, Mary's Pizza Shack. We went to their relatively new location on Sonoma Plaza, but for me, no matter how many branches they open, the only real Mary's is the one under the spreading magnolia Mary herself opened on Highway 12 in Boyes Springs back in the late '70s. I remember going to the original shack right up the road there when I was really little, but the current one in the Springs was where we'd go every week after Mom's softball games every summer, so it was fun to go with Audrey and feed her little tidbits of what for me is the ur-Italian sausage.]

[Then we went down to Traintown, a feature of Sonoma from long before I arrived in 1970. Mom tells me that my grandparents definitely took me there when I was not much older than the Niece is now, but of course I don't remember it. Despite having gone to high school right next door, and having driven past it hundreds of times, I had very little idea of what to expect.]

[While I can't really recommend it if you're not accompanying a small child, I have to say I had a really good time. The description on the website pretty much does it, but the photos are a little lacking. There's something to be said for planting trees and letting them grow for fifty years. The physical and mechanical plant is surprisingly impressive to someone like me who knows next to nothing about trains. Even the cheesy elements (like the ceramic figurines of deer, raccoons etc. placed through the forest) had a kitsch factor at which it was hard not to smile.]

[The Niece loved it, especially the tunnels - she has a thing for tunnels, and for rail travel in general. One of the minor tragedies of their moving across the bay is that A. won't get to ride her - OK, my - beloved J Church streetcar much anymore. When we put her in one of those little coin-op rides in the shape of a train, she giggled and exclaimed "Audrey Driving!"]

[Like grandmother, like mother, like daughter, and heaven help the California Highway Patrol in 2022, when all three generations probably will take a road trip together. (Hell, I just remembered I got a speeding ticket in Tehama County en route to Portland, so what do I have to say about anything...?)]

[A good day, and the descending gloom at the obnoxiously early hour of five o'clock didn't hit me too hard as Kate and I headed back, she to prepare for her trip and me to West Oakland BART. It helped that the Niece called me "Uncle Bill" to my face for the first time, and repeatedly.]

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