California - Day 6 & 7 - A Train Ride and the "Somewhat" Eventful Trip Home

Well here we are at the last day of our trip. It's sad to even write about it. We all miss Aunt Bonnie and Uncle Michael very very much and wish we lived closer to one another. But we weren't about to dwell on the sadness and our last day was filled with more fun! We traveled back towards the direction of where we went strawberry picking but this time we turned off the highway a little earlier and headed for the mountains. We took a train ride through the redwood forest and up Bear mountain. The weather was absolutely beautiful and the scenery was just amazing. While the beach in Florida is a beautiful sight, I do miss seeing mountains and forests with big trees. Before the train ride, we enjoyed a picnic.

Jeff enjoying his (once) favorite drink while Daniel enjoyed the sunshine:
Allison with her favorite aunt:
Check out the size of these trees!
Before we got on the train, the kids had a chance to run around and check out the area:
Hmmm...what's wrong with this picture?
The train that took us up the mountain:
Then we boarded the train and Aunt Bonnie hopped of to take a picture. This threw Daniel for a loop and he was hysterical. He was so worried Aunt Bonnie was going to miss the train. Never fear, she was back in plenty of time and Daniel recovered from the event. Then Aunt Bonnie took a family portrait for us:
We were in the first car of the train and this was the view behind us:
Some pictures from our ride:
After about 30 minutes we had reached the top of bear mountain!
A little perspective on the thickness of these trees (Allison is 42" tall). I think they gotta be this thick to grow as tall as they do without falling over:
Then we made the trek back down the mountain and finally back to where we started...goodbye train:
The train ride was a great way to end our wonderful vacation. The next day we headed to the airport to head on home. Our trip home was aboard Delta and was not a direct flight like our trip out to San Francisco. We had a (very short) layover in Atlanta. But before we even boarded the plan in San Francisco there was a slight...um...glitch. As we were waiting to board the plane, I heard over the intercom "Would Daniel (insert last name here) please report to the check-in desk." I looked at Jeff with a confused look on my face and said "Did they just call Daniel??" He had the same confused look on his face and I headed over to the desk. I looked at the Delta check-in lady and said (while pointing at my innocent three-year old) "This is Daniel". She looked back at me with the same confused look Jeff and I had and said "Hmmm...okay...Do you have any sort of picture ID for him?" Of course I had to chuckle at that. No, sorry, I don't carry around a picture ID for my three-year old (but maybe I should). Apparently he was on the dreaded "no-fly" list. Not sure if there is someone else out there with his name that happens to be on the list (that's my assumption) or what but luckily the Delta desk lady realized he wasn't going to try and blow up the plane and after figuring out how to properly input this into the system we were allowed to board the plane. We made our connection in Atlanta despite the fact that we were dropped off in Terminal E and had to hustle all the way to Terminal A with not much time to spare. We were a but winded but got a pretty good workout. Luckily they have an underground train to connect the terminals but it was still a hike considering we didn't have a stroller. So that, my friends, concludes the synopsis of our amazingly wonderful trip to visit Aunt Bonnie and Uncle Michael in California. We miss them dearly and can't wait for them to come visit us in Florida!!