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Surprising your girlfriend with a train ride
Women love to be surprised by their sweeties on
Valentine’s day. For guys, it’s a challenge to come up with something
new every year. This time, I planned a surprise using the Internet and
wanted to keep my partner Greta guessing.
A week before Valentine’s day, I said to her,
"Our 'MISSION' is as follows. We'll be leaving your house before 8
a.m. on Valentine’s morning. Each day until then I will give you three
clues, and then I mentioned the first clue:
"Pack a casual bag with walking shoes." That
didn't tell her much--it sounded like a hiking trip.
Most of the clues were intentionally obscure. I
didn’t make them overly informative; I wanted the surprise to last.
As the week progressed, this was one of the
clues:
"One was called The Mercury, another The
Twilight, and another The Wolverine. In the song, 'Texas 1947,' Johnny
Cash sang about one." She was fairly confused. I was proud of myself
for keeping her guessing.
Another clue: "Gauchos hang out there." She put
the words "MISSION" and "Gauchos," together and was convinced we were
heading for Santa Barbara, about three hours from us on the Central
California coast. University of California Santa Barbara sports teams
are nicknamed "Gauchos." I made that clue too easy.
More clues: "Sometimes, the front is at the back,
and the back is at the front. The colors are red, white, and blue."
I told her that according to a Gordon Lightfoot
song, the men who built one lived on stew and drank bad whiskey. She
guessed we were going to a dude ranch for a week-end of living like
cowboys.
In the final clue, I suggested she bring ample
reading material. I knew she'd have time on the train to read.
On Valentine’s morning, we left her San Clemente,
California, house and drove south. She changed her destination guess
to Mexico. Then I exited the freeway and went north on the I-5, and
she went back to her Santa Barbara-destination guess.
We pulled into San Juan Capistrano for breakfast
at Mollies. When a red and white Amtrak train sailed by, with the
engine facing backwards, she said, "We’re taking the train!" The
surprise was over.
We drove to the parking garage next to the Amtrak
depot; our Santa Barbara-bound train was leaving at 9:34 a.m.
In Santa Barbara, we stayed at a motel on State
Street. From there, we walked two miles to the end of the pier and
back, along restaurants and shops teeming with tourists. For dinner,
we selected romantic Carlitos & Co., and agreed the restaurant had the
best Mexican food (and margaritas) we’d ever had.
In the morning, after a pancake breakfast at IHOP,
the weather was so beautiful we walked while carrying our bags the two
miles to the train station for our 10:18 a.m. departure back.
I haven’t decided what to do for next Valentine’s
Day. Oh, and those clues: The Mercury, Wolverine, and Twilight? They
were the names of the New York Central trains which ran through my
hometown of Jackson, Michigan, shortly after World War II. My dad took
my brother and I to the station to watch the trains come and go. It
was a big deal for us.
"Texas 1947," the Johnny Cash song, was about the
first diesel train that ran through Texas and the Lightfoot tune, "The
Canadian Railroad Song," was about building the Canadian railroad,
where the men lived on stew and drank bad whiskey. Greta said she
suspected that but didn't want to ruin the surprise so didn't say
anything.
There
are more train trips in our future. And Santa Barbara will be one of
our destinations. © Tom Blake 2003
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