A ghoulish October greeting!

October 5, 1998

Welcome to the first of what we hope will be many occasional installments of our new online family newsletter. We say "hope" because these things tend to start off with a bang and peter out with a whimper, but we'll assume at least for the moment that other missives will follow.

Well, vacation time is winding down and it is back to work as we enter the holidays, traditionally the busiest time of year for Glenn's business and a generally quiet one for Roni's. We should all be well rested, however, following nearly three weeks of relaxing at home and traveling. There were no long trips this time, but we did get up to the Sierras the last weekend in September for what we hoped would be a chance to enjoy some fall color and mild weather. Instead, it rained all weekend. On Saturday the 26th we drove to Truckee for the town's first Railroad Days celebration. We arrived very ill prepared for rain and spent the first hour there shopping for clothes. The show was nice, but the weather literally put a damper on most of the planned activities.

Following a night at the Truckee Inn, we checked out some of the downtown shops before continuing our journey up to Portola for a visit to the Portola Railroad Museum. Again it was a cold and rainy day, but Benji didn't seem to mind as he climbed on just about every piece of railroad equipment they had on display. We ate lunch there, then followed Highway 70 through the Feather River canyon on our way toward home.

Roni is having a ball taking photos again. She got a new Minolta XTsi just before the trip, which marks the first time in over a year she has had a real camera to work with. We are considering buying stock in Kodak to offset the cost of all the film she is going through. <g>

Roni really gave her photography skills a workout on Sept. 28 when we journeyed to San Francisco for a day at Fisherman's Wharf and a ferry boat ride to Sausalito. Benji is now convinced he likes boats. It was a beautiful day with lots of great views of the skyline and some pleasant memories for all. That night we dined with Glenn's folks in Hayward.

We returned to San Francisco Oct. 4, this time via BART, for a walk downtown and lunch at Embarcadero Center. Benji had fun feeding and chasing the pigeons. We checked out the Ferry Building, then walked through the financial district and looked at the Transamerica pyramid. A little shopping and then it was a long BART trip back home.

Our one other major vacation excursion was Oct. 3 to Travis Air Base in Fairfield for the base's open house and air show. There must have been at least 50,000 people there. It was an awesome event, with nearly 30 planes on display and dozens more doing aerobatic stunts. Benji was reluctant to go because it had nothing to do with trains, but once he saw a few of the fly-bys he was hooked, as were the rest of us.

Many of you know we are devoted railfans. The month of November will be a busy one for us with train shows happening in Roseville, Pleasanton, Antioch and elsewhere. We'll give you an update in future installments of this newsletter.

Happy birthday wishes to Sean, who hits the big 23 on Oct. 17. We'll be expanding this section in the future. If you have information about other family members, e-mail addresses, photos, birthdays or other items to contribute, please drop us a line. Until next time, have a Happy Halloween.

Glenn, Roni and Benji

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