steam locomotive. Giant trees, within arm's reach, flashing by as the train whistle blows and the iron locomotive works hard to bring you up to the top of a forested mountain.
Imagine no more, Rai, you've done it! A few days ago we visited the Roaring Camp historic railroad in the Santa Cruz mountains near the mountain town of Felton where you made this nostalgic journey by train. At just 3 months of age, it's pretty unlikely that you'll remember this adventure. I mean, your Mom was going there during elementary school and she didn't even remember
it! The memory had faded so completely for her that she got 
all excited about this narrow gauge railway when she saw it on two different baby blogs over the past few months. "Where 
is this railroad?!" she wondered as she looked at the happy smiles on the faces of our friends' kids. Still, the images did nothing to bring back memories from several visits to the railroad years ago.It was a great experience -- one that we'll repeat -- but there's one thing we'd like to see changed about it. As it is, the locomotive is absolutely authentic right down to the last detail. Unfortunately, what this means is that it burns piles of coal and billows
suffocating clouds of black smoke into the pristine redwood groves through which it rides. We can 
only imagine the carbon footprint of this train, running several journeys daily, 365 days per year.The ride through "the big trees" that Roaring Camp promises is more than slightly diminished by the emission of all this dark smoke as it chars and singes the green leaves and pines of the trees above the tracks. Still, parents come here not only for their
kids but to enjoy a little bit of nostalgia themselves so it is unlikely that we'll see this locomotive go green anytime soon. For now, all you can do is imagine a smooth, silent, zero-emission, magnetic rail trip pulled by the train of the future through the majestic redwoods of coastal California. All dreams begin in one's imagination.
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