Blame the Pagans

 Easter traditions, how did they get started?   

I never saw an obvious connection between eggs, rabbits and the (alleged) Resurrection.  I say alleged because I'm not a Christian - or any other religion.

There is no 100% certifiable reason but the popular belief is that it dates back thousands of years to the pagans.  Pagans supposedly associated eggs and rabbits with fertility and spring.

Okay.  So, what's a pagan?  It is: a person who is not religious or whose religion is not Judaism, Islam, or especially Christianity.

Which is pretty much the same as heathen. 

Both terms, pagan and heathen, are rarely used these days.  Atheist is used instead. 

That said, my ex, Patty, marketed small signs to place by entry doors that read: Cheap, apolitical pagans live here.  We don't want to buy it, contribute to it or hear about it.

Somebody (loved it or offended by it?) ripped it off our front entry in our last home in Oregon.

Train - And Cars and Planes

Trish planned a train trip on the California Zephyr, from Emeryville, CA to Denver, and back  We wanted my sister-in-law, Linda, and her guy to join us.  She did.  He didn't.  So, she invited her daughter, Trista, instead.

Linda flew in from MN, Trista from FL,  Trish and I drove from Lake Havasu City.  We met up at the Hyatt House, a nice hotel, right across from the train station.  

Trains are inherently tight on space.   Two people plus their luggage plus their beds in a space that's 3' wide, 7' long and 7' high is cozy indeed.  But it all worked and the food was good.  We spent 1.5 days on the train.

The plan was to spend 2 days in Denver, do a tour of the city, head home on the train AM of the 3rd day.   But - the best laid plans of mice and men.....  Our return train got stalled by a snow storm somewhere between Chicago and Denver.  That gave us 2 choices:

     1. spend an extra day in Denver and take the train back to Emeryville, lose our Emeryville hotel reservation $, get home a day late, pay doggy day care more $. 

    2. Linda and Trista fly home from Denver; Trish and I fly to San Francisco, to get the car and use the hotel reservation.

The 2nd choice won.  

The lobby of The Crawford Hotel.

The down side is we much enjoyed visiting with Linda and Trista, and wish we'd had a couple more days for that.  And the 'luxury' hotel, The Crawford, in Denver.  Apparently, luxury means pretty.  With no microwave and a pissant coffee-maker that was worthless, jazz music all day in the lobby.  I think the only thing worse than jazz is opera.  Yes, I have pedestrian tastes in music.

The upside was our last night in Emeryville, on the 9th floor of the hotel, with a great view.

This was my 2nd (and last) overnight on a train.  The first was when I entered the army, in 1966.  The airlines were on strike so I took the train from Fargo to New Jersey.