Berkeley

There are no trains from San Luis now, either north or southbound, because of the mudslides earlier this month. Instead, Amtrak provides the most train-like bus service they can manage. Tom drove me to the station after we dropped Linnea at the high school. One man, always the same man as far as I know, minds the train station, selling tickets, making the announcements, answering the phone, carrying baggage. The station itself is spacious, solid and clean, tiled in what I know know is uniquely Californian tile. The bus was similarly clean and surprising light and airy.

I pulled out Linnea's CD player and listened to the last third of Vann Martell's fantastic Story of Pi as we climbed Cuesta Grade, the sides of the mountains vibrant green in the morning sun. It was in the period in the book when Pi was blind, and speaking with Richard Parker, the Bengal tiger, for the first time. Great story. Just as we pulled into the train station in San Jose a few hours later, the reader came to the final lines. Such a tidy conclusion seems auspicious.

The trains are running north from San Jose, so I took the Capital, which makes some local stops along the East Bay before continuing to Sacramento. At one I point looked out from my second floor seat and saw water almost as far as I could see on both sides of the train. Lisa, Martin and the two little boys met me at the station in Berkeley. It was early, only two in the afternoon, so after dropping off my bags at the house, we set out along a footpath to Cordonices Park. An elaborate network of footpaths in Berkeley curves between the streets and houses, offering a intimate view of gardens, eccentrically ornate gates, and occasional cameos of the fog-draped hills. Though the path was damp and muddy, Jeremy, who's just five, ran along confidently, pulling me by the hand.

In the park there is a long, concrete slide, built right into the hillside. Pieces of wet cardboard, used to make the slide faster on dryer days, littered the ground at its bottom. Jeremy and Martin went down slow and damp a few times but it was much more fun to join in the project when a ten year old boy brought over a vehicle he'd built with K'nex, a pair of two inch high rubber tires attached together like a bicycle. Soon Martin and Jeremy were constructing jumps and tunnels from the cardboard as the boy ran up the stairs to release the toy.

Brendan and Jessica joined us for a Vietnamese meal downtown before we headed back to get an early night. We'd be getting up at 4.