The Way to San Jose

I must really like Rachel or something, because I got up at 4:30am on Thursday and drove out to Dulles to catch my 7:00am flight. I parked in the economy lot and was on the bus heading to the terminal when another passenger realized he hadn't locked his car. Before he said anything, I was 100% sure I had locked my own car, but of course, now that he brought it up, I started to doubt myself. Awesome. I decided not to go back and check it, though. I am trying to rein in the neurosis. Checking in was easy because I only had carry-on (one advantage of visiting a longtime friend is that you can just use their shampoo and soap and stuff), but I was, as always, totally grossed out by the transit system at Dulles. I got to terminal B and had my usual bananaberry smoothie while I waited to get on the plane. I flew Virgin America again, which I had flown with Ashley back in February and which is a terrific airline. High recommend!!!

We landed at SFO early (!), and I got a call from Rachel while I was on the AirTrain heading for the BART station. Bad news -- baby Kate has a bad infection, so we would have to stay around the house today. Since I was looking forward to seeing Rachel, I didn't mind staying home, but it is always terrible when a baby is sick. Anyway, it was an especially good thing I'd decided to take public transportation to San Jose.

I must really like Rachel or something, because I got up at 4:30am on Thursday.

I hear a lot about how environmentally-minded California is, but I would like to complain briefly about the public transportation here. The BART trains go to the airport, and they also go to the Caltrain depot in Millbrae, maybe a mile away. However, these two stations are not on the same line. So I had to get on the yellow train at SFO, take it one stop to San Bruno, get off, wait for a red train, and then take that train one stop to Millbrae. It took about 20 minutes to go this tiny distance. Grrr! I should have taken a cab. Anyway, I got to Millbrae station at 10:10am and bought a ticket to San Jose (super cheap -- $5.75). Then I was faced with the decision about which platform to wait on. Now, I consider myself something of an expert at traveling, specifically at train travel. However, this station completely stumped me. There were signs on the platform indicating that San Francisco was one direction and San Jose the other, but there was no sign reading "This side for San Jose trains." I asked around and learned that I was, in fact, on the wrong side. I had to go up an escalator, across a bridge, and down some steps to get to the San Jose side. I realized that the only indicator of which side goes where is on the schedule, which is written in about 12-point font, and on which Millbrae is highlighted in yellow on the northbound schedule on one platform and on the southbound on the other. Seriously, California -- help a girl out here!

The train came on time, which makes Caltrain better than Amtrak already. Whenever I have a choice, I always take the top level of a train or bus, so I went up to the top level of the double-decker train car. The ride from Millbrae to San Jose was a little over an hour. We went through Palo Alto, so I saw signs for Stanford and lots of the Mission architecture. Rachel picked me up at San Jose and we went off to Kate's pediatrician's office. After getting some medicine for the baby, we headed home and hung out around the house and chatted all afternoon. We decided to get Chinese takeout for dinner, so Joe picked it up on the way home. Kate was feeling better, so both Rachel and Joe got to eat. Then we watched movies in the den and took turns holding the baby. By 9:30, I was really tired, since I was awake at 1:30am West Coast time, so I lamely went to bed early. A good day, though!