I’m riding a train, northbound, through Sonoma County. I gaze out the window as the low-angled golden afternoon light illuminates the blonde, oak-strewn Coast Range hills. The vineyards in the foreground suddenly give way to a broad pasture, and then I see him. It’s a cowboy, white Stetson, leather vest, riding at full speed atop a handsome steed, parallel to the train. And maybe 20 yards to the cowboy’s right is another horse, this one smaller and unbridled, also running at a gallop, its mane waving in the breeze.
Then, five seconds or so later, it’s gone. The scene was so absurdly picturesque, I laugh and look around the train car at the other passengers as if to say, “Hey, anyone else notice we just passed through the title sequence of ‘Lonesome Dove’?” No one seems to have noticed.
This is the SMART train — that stands for Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit. If SMART had hired Ralph Lauren’s ad director with instructions to spare no expense to impress an out-of-town visitor on the general fabulousness of the SMART train, they could not have done better than this typical weekday afternoon…