Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Well! We're part way through our trip to California - we've had a mix of transportation, including planes, trains, and automobiles (and a bus)!

The day we left Sète, we drove down to the pharmacy for our COVID tests (required the day before our flight) - happily, negative. Then we stored the car, grabbed our suitcases, and caught the bus to the train station. Originally, I had a series of trains that left just the required half hour to transfer, but the day before, I suddenly remembered that even in a good year, French trains are only 56% on time... So, we simply caught an earlier TER (local) train, and spent an extra hour waiting for the TGV (high speed train). No problem, all were on time 🙂. We got off at Charles de Gaulle airport (terminal 2), and simply followed the signs to our Ibis hotel in terminal 3 (taking a tram!).

The next morning, we left our hotel at 8, and just made our boarding time for the 10:30 flight - tram back to terminal 2, check-in, check suitcases, border control (using our US passports, mainly because of COVID paperwork differences), tram to our gate, security, and finally, boarding.

Our plane (Air France, 777), landed nearly an *hour* *early*!! So we had no real concern making our connections. We did spend longer than usual getting out of the airport - luggage problem, resolved, then agricultural inspection (took a good half hour, but all our shelf-stable goodies got through). Then signs to BART (turns out we had to buy clipper cards, then load them - a kind soul then told me where the sensor was, so we could enter 🙄, and another kind soul held the train for us). We transferred right away to another line, then stayed on all the way to Richmond. It was the end of the red line, and an easy transfer to the capitol corridor train to Davis. Once on the train, I could connect to WiFi and call Dad - he left right away, and met us at the station.

Now to automobiles! All along the route from Davis to Yuba City, a daily trip for me during much of college, I saw place after place where something had happened. There's where my brakes gave out, there's where I got brake fluid, there's where my car just stopped and I called Dad from that farmhouse... And! There are the fields and orchards that my friend and I used to identify by scent, driving home on a balmy night.

After just over a week with the folks, full of cooking dinners, shopping, and clearing out storage, we're back on the train, this time to Berkeley, to visit with Rick's family!

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To note: capitol corridor trains are unreserved, so (I confirmed this) if you miss your train, you can just catch a later one - you don't have to do anything, just show your original ticket. The TER trains in France work exactly the same way.