We’re
finally on our way to Chicago. It feels
good to get going after the long wait and anticipation and then the last minute
scramble to find an alternate route after our Empire Builder reservations were
canceled.
We left
home mid-morning on Saturday and had an easy drive to Davis including a stop at
Harris Ranch along I-5 for lunch. We
checked in to the Hallmark Inn in Davis just after 3:00. Our first order of business was to check on
long-term parking at the Amtrak Station. After checking at the station we decided to
park our car in the long term parking that night as we were told the parking lot
sometimes fills up in the morning. We
wandered around town a bit and then had an OK Mexican dinner at Tres Hermanos and a dessert at an ice cream place called Cream (delicious) and then back to the
hotel.
In the
morning we walked over to the Amtrak station, checked our bags and then we
returned to the hotel where we had an excellent breakfast. By then it was getting close to train time so
we grabbed our carry-ons and headed back to the station. After a short wait our train arrived and we
were on our way.
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| The Davis Train Station |
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| Val's waiting for the train. |
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| And it finally arrives. |
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| Time to board. |
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| We're on our way. |
One unfortunate thing
about our last minute change of plans was we got the last available bedroom,
which was also the least desirable because it was a little smaller than the rest. It wasn’t too bad, but you did really notice
the difference when it was time to go to bed because there was much less room to move around when
the beds are down. The rooms aren’t that
big to begin with so any loss of space is really noticeable. Oh well, we are just grateful we could get
one at all. It turns out there are quite a few people on the train who were
displaced by the Empire Builder cancellations.
As usual,
we had a beautiful trip through the Sierras and arrived in Reno just a little
late. It was very dry in the mountains and
the only snow we saw was at the highest elevations.
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| Donner Lake |
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| The Truckee River |
From Reno we started the long journey across
Nevada where we had a very sad event occur on the train. Midway between Fallon and Winnemuca, Nevada
the conductor announced we would be stopping because of a medical emergency that
required the patient to be evacuated.
After waiting 30 to 40 minutes an ambulance showed up along with a
sheriff’s car. After a while the
ambulance left and we found out the patient had died and they were waiting for
the coroner before the train could leave.
It turns out it was an elderly man who had gotten on the train alone and
at some point had trouble breathing and then passed away. Very sad and
sobering. All in all we were probably
delayed about two hours, but that paled compared to the tragedy of someone
losing their life. The rest of the day
and evening were uneventful and after a late dinner in the dining car, Val and
I went to bed.
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| The ambulance arrives. |
Neither Val
nor I slept very well, and that coupled with losing an hour with a time zone
change, we started our second day on the train pretty tired. We had breakfast then we spent the morning watching the world roll by from our
window. As we entered Colorado we
started following the Colorado River which was very full due to the the high volume of snowmelt. Our trip through the Rockies
was very scenic, but we lost more time in the process and we arrived in Denver
around 9:00 in the evening which is about three hours late. Denver has a new train station, which is much
nicer than the temporary one that we were in on our trip to Denver a couple of
years ago. After Denver it was time for
bed with hopes that we would sleep better tonight as we were both tired and
would lose another hour as we change time zones again.
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| The Colorado River |
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| The Colorado River and Interstate 70 |
Tuesday
morning we slept late and we both felt pretty refreshed as we slept better than our first
night. We decided to skip breakfast and
spent the morning watching the countryside roll by as we crossed Nebraska and
into Iowa. Lunch was a little sparse as
they were running out of food, but we both had hamburgers which were pretty
good. Rail traffic was very heavy and we
kept losing time and by the time we arrive in Chicago it was almost 7:00 PM
which meant we were four hours late. Oh
well, it could be a lot worse.
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| Entering the drawbridge to cross the Mississippi. |
|
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| The Mississippi River |
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