SMART Train

It stands for Sonoma MarinArea Rapid Transit. We watched them building the platform and laying the tracks for the train when we first moved here and went quite often to Flying Goat Coffee. Currently it runs from the Sonoma County airport to the terminal for the Larkspur Ferry to San Francisco. It's quite a nice train with a little snack bar, good wifi and a place to put bikes. The main problem with it is that while the ride to Larkspur takes an hour each way, all the parking around the Santa Rosa Downtown station is maximum two hours. Other parking garages are a fair distance away. Other stations have free parking, but by the time we're in the car to drive that far, it just seems easier to drive. In order for public transport to work, there needs to be  good connecting transport as well.

It was cold again this morning without benefit of sun. Another atmospheric river is expected  tonight and as I drove to PIlates today I noticed several places where repairs have yet to be made from the damage caused by the last one. There was a small landslide across from the Trail House and barricades have been put up, closing one lane, but aside from cutting down a tree that was leaning out over the scar nothing has been done. It wouldn't surprise me if city engineers are trying to figure out how best to stabilize the hill. A house built on a burn scar slid off its foundations and broke into two pieces. I just got an alert that several houses in the same area have been evacuated. They did a lot of tree work on the side of the road into town but there are still a aalot of trees leaning dangerously out over the road. 

It never fails that a few people who try to drive through flooded roadways get stranded and have to be rescued, despite the fact that signs have been posted telling them not to. Perhaps if they were fined and had to pay for their rescue they would pay more attention.

There are signs that the judiciary is trying to stop the assault of the Felon and his non-elected sidekick, and their blizzard of executive orders. There was one yesterday undoing the ban on plastic straws (...really? apparently the president thinks the paper straw in his MacDonald's soda contains things damaging to his health.) But I digress...it's so easy to do that. Here instead is a quote.

The same old serpent that serves the needs of a few wealthy peoeple is the same old serpent that says you work and I eat, you toil and I will enjoy the fruits of it. Turn it whatever way you will---whether it come from the mouth of a king, an excuse for enslaving the people of his country, or from the mouth of men of one race as a reason for enslaving the men of another race, it is alal the same old serpent.
-Abraham Lincoln.