The Great Amtrak Escape, Day Three

Originally published on onlyonewaytofindout.travel

“Denver! One Hour!”. I woke up around 7AM, just as we were getting into Denver. I got up and grabbed breakfast with a couple of women on their way to Reno to meet some old college friends. I had a veggie omelet that was decent, and more importantly some coffee. As we ate the countryside quickly changed from flat grasslands to downtown industry once again. We pulled on in through downtown. This was planned to be one of our longest stops, so after I finished up breakfast, I made my way down back to my room and outside to walk around for 20 minutes.

I finally figured out what the different car was on the back of our train. A private car! Talking to my car attendant he mentioned that Amtrak only charges about $10k to tow it across country. The cars themselves start at half a million… Not too bad… I wonder what the operating costs are. I also learned that the engineers are allowed 12 hours driving time and switch off with the same group of conductors. Pretty similar to how pilots and flight crew are only allotted a certain amount of flying time before they time out.

Not long after pulling out of Denver did, we start winding our way up the hills, or mountains I suppose, west of the city. It was pretty impressive watching the front of our train loop around the switch bag, dragging us along behind it as we slowly gained in elevation. Off in the distance you could see the city fall away.

We wound our way through the canyons, mountains and river. Everyone was glued to the windows in the observation car. It was standing room only for a long while until eventually we went through the 6.5 mile tunnel which took about 10-15 minutes. With gasps and cheers we were blinded by the sunlight once we came out the other side.

Lunch started at noon and lasted until two, I was one of the last groups to get seated. Unfortunately, my lunch table was made up of the least talkative group on the train, but I had a good burger and a good view, so you can’t really complain. I believe at this point we were crossing through the west of the White River National Forest. This area flattened out significantly, but the sharp new mountains were not far behind the cows and horses grazing in the fields.

Throughout the trip through the national forest we followed, I think the Colorado River, as were presented the view of probably hundreds of rafters mooning the train as we rolled by. It was really quite a sight to behold! The river that is…

The Colorado Rockies took up the majority of the day and we followed the river for hours. You could sit in the observation car for that amount of time, blink, and still feel like you missed it… And that’s what many people did… in fact, many times I felt like the train could use another observation car. One realization many people, including myself, came to was that it felt like time passed so much quickly than it should in observation. Quite literally, we all spent days together, more or less, crammed into the same outward facing chairs, eyes glued to the windows. Even those deep into conversations held expressions of wonder and intrigue as various wonders caught their eye outside.

Being a relatively introverted person, I was quite happy to sit alone and stare out the window for hours… and hours. However, on the train there is always someone willing and happy to talk. I shared my story of coming from New York on the train; it seemed as though most people had gotten on at Chicago. There were a few familiar faces that I had seen on the Lake Shore train, and while I didn’t talk to all over them there was always the friendly, and knowing, nod of recognition.

I met travelers from other countries, a few of whom had never visited the US before, coming from Sweden and the Netherlands, Australia and Japan. Some of them were using Amtrak as transportation across to country to continue on with their adventure, catching flights out of San Francisco.

A musician, born in New York city, lived in Vermont and Northern California started up conversation with me. We traded stories about our commonalities, and he mentioned he was working on a play. He gave me the run down. Nearly an hour of an epic story about a Spanish merchant in the 1800s, including the usual theatrics of love, heartbreak, travel and revolutions. I couldn’t be happier, while not one to typically enjoy plays or even someone talking my ear off for an hour… It was great to listen to this story and watch the world go by… what else was I going to do anyways?

A traveling nurse who was on her way to begin a three-month stay in Palo Alto. She had been on since Buffalo, New York. She worked as a pediatric oncologist and explained how travelling nurses work with recruiters and agents to get placed all over the country. It was really a quite fascinating field to learn about. She had previously taken the train before and shared her experiences. Nearing the end of our trip she commented on how people come together on the train.

You’ll see groups of people who have never met before suddenly become inseparable. It really is amazing the trust and the bonds people develop on these types of trips. It wasn’t uncommon to be seated in the observation car and for someone to introduce themselves and share their life story. Occasionally someone will lean over and ask if you’ll watch their bag while they run back to their seat (which in some cases could be quite a walk!), and here you are, watching over someone’s bag with likely all their belongings for their trip. While there are quite literally some horror stories about midnight knife wielding passengers, it felt as though trust is something that is just implied. My guess is that we’re all in it together – you couldn’t really get all that far if you were to steal something…

After while the Rockies got squashed, the rivers dried up, and the grass and trees turned to sand and red rock. We’d crossed into Utah. I had no expectations for Utah and the state completely blew them away. I headed back to my room to get away for a bit, read and wait for dinner reservations. The sun started getting low in the sky, the pinks, oranges and yellows started showing through the thicker atmosphere. It was like a scene from a movie one hundred years ago, riding the train out into the Wild West. I half expected to see cowboys roaming the landscape!

Dinner came around, again always quicker than I would have liked, and I headed to the dining car. I was seated with an English teacher on their way to Taiwan to teach English for an indefinite amount of time. It was their first time leaving the country, but not the first taking the train. In fact, they had taken the train all the way around the country, and the California Zephyr was one of the last routes left… We broke into some deep philosophical questions, about traveling, space exploration, living forever and its pros and cons (I voted against it – having a finite timeline gives us a sense of purpose and meaning), the history of languages and their origins. It was truly one of the best meals (I ended up having the Surf and Turf – it wasn’t as good as the steak the previous night) and conversations I had on this trip.

Eventually dinner wrapped up and I headed back to my room, grabbed my book and went to the observation car to read a little more. For me, being on the train was much like going camping. You wake up with the sun, and you sleep with the sun. I was waking up, maybe due to the time changes, around 6AM every morning and went to bed around 10PM every night. It would get dark so you couldn’t look outside, and unless there was some activity going on the train, it got a bit boring. It was pretty easy to be lulled asleep!

Lying in bed in Utah, I realized that if I put my head behind curtain to block the ambient light coming from the hallway lights you could see an incredible number of stars… and the Milky Way! Every night I had watched the stars out the window, but Utah takes the cake. I was blown away.