Tue Nov 27:
My niece, Melody, saw me off at South Station for the return trip west after Thanksgiving holidays with my family. I had never been in the Club Acela at South Station, so I checked it out online, and found that I was allowed a guest in the lounge. Mel loved the lounge – she thought this was really “the way to travel,” and she relished her coffee and the slice of pound cake that she got with it.
The desk attendant had said that Mel would not be allowed on the train, but I don’t need the services of a redcap, so we walk out to the platform together. The conductor and my sleeper attendant, Jana, are both willing for me to introduce Mel to Amtrak by showing her the car, so we board and I stow my gear and show her the roomette, which she thinks the height of elegant travel. Then we walk through coach (which is what she can afford right now), and the café car. Too bad I can’t show her the dining car, which does not get added till Albany, where we meet the section coming from NYP.
The trip to Albany is lovely, a gray and moist day but with a dusting of snow on the Berkshires. Jana tells me there is wi-fi inside the station at Albany, so I head in for the layover, as they move the train away from the platform and I have to make the decision whether to re-board now or just before leaving. The station café has a nice herb tea, and I sip away while I check email and the weather. A big storm is forecast on the Northwest coast, and I’m a little worried about the Oakridge mudslide recurring. Back on 2008, it closed the tracks over Willamette Pass for 105 days, and caused the cancellation of the Coast Starlight for months. We had to cancel a planned Amtrak trip to Texas.
When I re-board, the train is all put together and Jana says the dining car is ready for us right now. For dinner, I sit with two women who are sisters-in-law from opposite sides of the country. The Massachusetts one is going to Portland with the Oregon one. By next morning, we’ve figured out that the Oregon one has neighbors that attend SolWest, the event that I plan every year. We have lifestyle interests in common, as well, and exchange email addresses. I meet so many nice people on the train, and every once in awhile, they become friends for a lifetime!
Wed Nov 28:
Arriving in Chicago, I head out for a walk and lunch at the French Market with my new friends. To find the French Market, walk north on either Clinton or Canal for four blocks, and look for the arcade between the two streets (the official address is 217 N Clinton). There are lots of little shops in the arcade, and you can probably find about anything you desire for lunch, as well as a CVS pharmacy in case you forgot a personal care item.
Back at the Metropolitan Lounge, I get online and find a friend has posted a link on facebook about the rebuilding of the track on Willamette Pass that reassures me about its current resilience in the face of a heavy storm. We check in with our train conductors, and part as boarding is announced for the Zephyr (their train is a half hour later). My attendant is Gwendolyn, and she runs a tight ship. The sleeper’s nearly full and G goes around to ask *exactly* what time we would like our beds put down for the night. Early-to-bed and catching up on sleep is my vacation mode, so it’s 6pm dinner, and 8:30 bed makeup for me. There’s a lovely prairie sunset just past Galesburg, as I work on the SolWest video clips on my computer. The prairie sky is so wide!
Thu Nov 29:
I have breakfast early, sharing the table with a couple from Kansas City and a woman from Sacramento. The guy is wearing a VW “50 years” commemorative t-shirt from the factory in Mexico, and I covet one for my sweetie the classic VW fan.
In Denver, I spend some time in the station on their wi-fi, checking email and weather. The storm is still predicted to have heavy impact on the Northwest, but I can’t see that it has done very much except rain so far. It’s a gorgeous day in Colorado, with highs in the mid-50’s predicted for Denver and Glenwood Springs. There is very little snow for this time of year at Winter Park, and none at all at the middle and lower elevations.
I quit my computer work, and spend some time in the Sightseer Lounge as we head down the Colorado River Canyon and Glenwood Canyon. The vertical rock walls are spectacular, the rivers swirling and icy, and the sky bright blue, with a pearlescent horizon. Not much wildlife compared to the last time I traveled through here, when I saw eagles, elk and mountain sheep.
We spend about 15 minutes at Grand Junction, and I’m disappointed there’s no public wi-fi in the station. I was hoping to get Lance’s reply to my morning email from Denver. Gwendolyn tells me that Amtrak is working on getting it at all stations, and on all trains. Her advice is “Write to Amtrak, honey, I can’t do anything about it!” Gwendolyn has been under the weather with a toothache this whole trip, but she’s gamely welcoming everyone as if this is the best trip she’s ever been on. I tell her you just have to be a people-person to be in her job.
I have nicely seasoned Atlantic salmon with rice pilaf and veggies for dinner, and mango sorbet for dessert. By 8:30 pm, I’m snoozing in my seat when Gwendolyn comes to put the bed down. I manage to stay awake till we’re out of Provo Canyon so I have some cell reception, and after a call to Hubby, I’m quickly lulled to sleep by the rhythm of the train. I barely notice the stop in Salt Lake City.
Fri Nov 30:
There’s a little rough track in Utah and Nevada, but none of it keeps me awake for long. After Winnemucca, the track smooths out, but I’m already awake for the day. It’s a good thing I went to bed early, because the munchkins down the hall are burbling up and down the hallway at 5am. At least most of the burbling is happy! By 6:30, I’m already in the lounge car trying to see what the weather’s like in the early pre-dawn light. This is new track for me, so I’m excited to see it. As soon as the dining car steward announces breakfast, I’m seated and enjoying the company of a woman that got on at Elko in the night. She entertains me with stories of gardening in the Great Basin: dust storms and Mormon crickets.
The train seems to be just doofing along, for quite a while now. The slow speed is explained as the conductor announces we’re following freights that have been restricted to 20 mph due to a “high wind watch.” We must be getting to the edge of that big storm system -- in the night, we passed from the clear skies of the Rockies to overcast skies in western Nevada. By the time the high wind watch is lifted, and we get past the freights and back up to speed, we’re definitely late. The conductor announces it’s raining in Reno, snowing hard on Donner Pass, and raining hard in Sac’to. His estimated arrival times run upwards of an hour late. Won’t bother me, I have a 10-hour layover!
My younger brother’s in Truckee, and wants to get a quick hug in as I pass through. I check with the conductor, and he lets me know that Truckee is a quick on/off stop, so I call Bro to let him know I’ll be late, and at the door of the REAR sleeper (the only one that will be opened). The conductor jokes that I could feign illness and get off for a day or two, but I’m more interested in making arrangements to drive back down later for a family visit.
It’s still overcast, but there are breaks in the clouds, and the dawn light on the basin-and-range formations we are traveling through is astoundingly beautiful. I didn’t notice exactly where it happened, but somewhere around Lovelock, the tracks parted company with I-80 and headed south through Fernley, one of Nevada’s prettier towns.
Reno’s a crew change, so I have to check about getting off in Truckee with the conductor on the new crew. You absolutely cannot step off at a quick stop without the conductor’s permission (or you’ll get left behind!), but he’s willing and tells me I can get an extra minute because it’s a two-spot stop. I call Bro with the Truckee schedule, and I’m waiting at the door of the coach that is supposed to be opened. Bro isn’t quite on the platform, but he runs to greet me and we get a couple hugs, and a quick discussion about the visit situation, as the train is spotted. A passenger gets off of the rear sleeper, I get back on with the conductor, and we’re off.
This is still track I’ve never been on, so I head up to the Sightseer Lounge. It’s pouring rain, and every little gully on the mountain is gushing waterfalls beside the track. Looking across the valley, we see longs ribbons of water cascading down the slopes. The only place it is snowing (and sticking to the ground) is right on top of Donner Pass. The slopes at Soda Ski Area look soggy and lonely. I go in search of my breakfast companion in coach, and we wait in the Lounge car for lunch service to be announced.
All of a sudden, there’s a commotion in the other end of the lounge car, and I hear the words “man down.” A call goes over the intercom for medical personnel to the lounge car, and several Amtrak employees show up. An EMT card is probably a good qualification for the job (might even be a requirement). The passenger is having a seizure, and the young woman sitting next to him knows that he is an epileptic, so once he begins to come out of it, the emergency is over.
At lunch, one of my meal companions says she was in John Day last summer -- for SolWest! So I tell her that organizing it is my job, and we find we also have the Forest Service in common (she a retired firefighter, I’m a sometime botany and stream surveyor). I certainly can say that I meet “my kind of people” on the train! A quick call after lunch to my sweetie at home, making plans to meet tomorrow. The sun breaks through the clouds, but there’s still water, water everywhere. The next wave of this storm is due tomorrow night, but should be at home by then.
At Sac’to, I check my big bag, and take a walk. Exiting the station, I cross the street, turn right, walk a block and then though a block of parking garage. On the far side is “Old Town,” a charming area with covered boardwalks and lots of little shops. The train Museum calls to me, but it’s only open a couple more hours, and I’m burning daylight, so I opt for a walking tour of the town. At the waterfront is another set of train tracks, and because it’s a Friday night in holiday season, an event train is just pulling out with families of excited children waving from the windows. After Old Town, I stroll through the Downtown Center shopping mall.
I arrive back at the station just in time to find that Robert, the young man, has had another seizure in the station and was taken to a hospital by emergency crew. Sarah is making arrangements with his mother to get his ticket changed and make sure he gets on his new train tomorrow morning. How lucky that a professional caregiver was sitting next to him when he first had his difficulties, and that you can find caring people on the train!
The Coast Starlight is running late from LAX (I find out that it was electrical problem with an engine, and they had to change it out). I chat with a young woman traveling between interviews for a first-year medical residency. She has a couple of days, so decided to take the train. It’s after 2am by the time we are boarded and leave SAC. As soon as the train begins moving, I’m asleep.
Sat Dec 1:
I wake a couple of times during the night to feel the train moving at a good clip, something I find so comforting that I’m immediately asleep again. By the time I wake up, it’s almost 8am and we’re already out of the river canyon, up on the Shasta plateau. If I had not already seen the river several times, I’d feel guilty about missing it, but this morning I’m just glad to have had close to six hours of sleep. Not much to see, the mountain partly peeks from the clouds from time to time.
I check in with my friends from the CZ and from the station. I tell Leanne that I want to know where she ends up with her residency, and we exchange email addresses. I show Mark the schedule for the connecting bus so he can head out to see the Pacific Ocean while he’s here. And I find out from Sarah that she was able to call Amtrak and verify that Robert boarded his southbound train in SAC, and is on the way to his destination, hopefully with no further incidents.
When the train arrives at my little unmanned platform stop, Chemult, the shuttle bus for Bend is waiting. It’s an hour and a half ride, and this is the first time I am on this bus since they built the new Hawthorne Station transit center in Bend, so I’m interested to see that over half the passengers disembark there. It looks like a nice facility with indoor waiting room. My sweetie awaits a short five minutes later at the Riverhouse stop. Not quite home yet (it’ll be lunch, a couple hours of errands, plus a three hour drive), but already there in spirit!
My niece, Melody, saw me off at South Station for the return trip west after Thanksgiving holidays with my family. I had never been in the Club Acela at South Station, so I checked it out online, and found that I was allowed a guest in the lounge. Mel loved the lounge – she thought this was really “the way to travel,” and she relished her coffee and the slice of pound cake that she got with it.
The desk attendant had said that Mel would not be allowed on the train, but I don’t need the services of a redcap, so we walk out to the platform together. The conductor and my sleeper attendant, Jana, are both willing for me to introduce Mel to Amtrak by showing her the car, so we board and I stow my gear and show her the roomette, which she thinks the height of elegant travel. Then we walk through coach (which is what she can afford right now), and the café car. Too bad I can’t show her the dining car, which does not get added till Albany, where we meet the section coming from NYP.
The trip to Albany is lovely, a gray and moist day but with a dusting of snow on the Berkshires. Jana tells me there is wi-fi inside the station at Albany, so I head in for the layover, as they move the train away from the platform and I have to make the decision whether to re-board now or just before leaving. The station café has a nice herb tea, and I sip away while I check email and the weather. A big storm is forecast on the Northwest coast, and I’m a little worried about the Oakridge mudslide recurring. Back on 2008, it closed the tracks over Willamette Pass for 105 days, and caused the cancellation of the Coast Starlight for months. We had to cancel a planned Amtrak trip to Texas.
When I re-board, the train is all put together and Jana says the dining car is ready for us right now. For dinner, I sit with two women who are sisters-in-law from opposite sides of the country. The Massachusetts one is going to Portland with the Oregon one. By next morning, we’ve figured out that the Oregon one has neighbors that attend SolWest, the event that I plan every year. We have lifestyle interests in common, as well, and exchange email addresses. I meet so many nice people on the train, and every once in awhile, they become friends for a lifetime!
Wed Nov 28:
Arriving in Chicago, I head out for a walk and lunch at the French Market with my new friends. To find the French Market, walk north on either Clinton or Canal for four blocks, and look for the arcade between the two streets (the official address is 217 N Clinton). There are lots of little shops in the arcade, and you can probably find about anything you desire for lunch, as well as a CVS pharmacy in case you forgot a personal care item.
Back at the Metropolitan Lounge, I get online and find a friend has posted a link on facebook about the rebuilding of the track on Willamette Pass that reassures me about its current resilience in the face of a heavy storm. We check in with our train conductors, and part as boarding is announced for the Zephyr (their train is a half hour later). My attendant is Gwendolyn, and she runs a tight ship. The sleeper’s nearly full and G goes around to ask *exactly* what time we would like our beds put down for the night. Early-to-bed and catching up on sleep is my vacation mode, so it’s 6pm dinner, and 8:30 bed makeup for me. There’s a lovely prairie sunset just past Galesburg, as I work on the SolWest video clips on my computer. The prairie sky is so wide!
Thu Nov 29:
I have breakfast early, sharing the table with a couple from Kansas City and a woman from Sacramento. The guy is wearing a VW “50 years” commemorative t-shirt from the factory in Mexico, and I covet one for my sweetie the classic VW fan.
In Denver, I spend some time in the station on their wi-fi, checking email and weather. The storm is still predicted to have heavy impact on the Northwest, but I can’t see that it has done very much except rain so far. It’s a gorgeous day in Colorado, with highs in the mid-50’s predicted for Denver and Glenwood Springs. There is very little snow for this time of year at Winter Park, and none at all at the middle and lower elevations.
I quit my computer work, and spend some time in the Sightseer Lounge as we head down the Colorado River Canyon and Glenwood Canyon. The vertical rock walls are spectacular, the rivers swirling and icy, and the sky bright blue, with a pearlescent horizon. Not much wildlife compared to the last time I traveled through here, when I saw eagles, elk and mountain sheep.
We spend about 15 minutes at Grand Junction, and I’m disappointed there’s no public wi-fi in the station. I was hoping to get Lance’s reply to my morning email from Denver. Gwendolyn tells me that Amtrak is working on getting it at all stations, and on all trains. Her advice is “Write to Amtrak, honey, I can’t do anything about it!” Gwendolyn has been under the weather with a toothache this whole trip, but she’s gamely welcoming everyone as if this is the best trip she’s ever been on. I tell her you just have to be a people-person to be in her job.
I have nicely seasoned Atlantic salmon with rice pilaf and veggies for dinner, and mango sorbet for dessert. By 8:30 pm, I’m snoozing in my seat when Gwendolyn comes to put the bed down. I manage to stay awake till we’re out of Provo Canyon so I have some cell reception, and after a call to Hubby, I’m quickly lulled to sleep by the rhythm of the train. I barely notice the stop in Salt Lake City.
Fri Nov 30:
There’s a little rough track in Utah and Nevada, but none of it keeps me awake for long. After Winnemucca, the track smooths out, but I’m already awake for the day. It’s a good thing I went to bed early, because the munchkins down the hall are burbling up and down the hallway at 5am. At least most of the burbling is happy! By 6:30, I’m already in the lounge car trying to see what the weather’s like in the early pre-dawn light. This is new track for me, so I’m excited to see it. As soon as the dining car steward announces breakfast, I’m seated and enjoying the company of a woman that got on at Elko in the night. She entertains me with stories of gardening in the Great Basin: dust storms and Mormon crickets.
The train seems to be just doofing along, for quite a while now. The slow speed is explained as the conductor announces we’re following freights that have been restricted to 20 mph due to a “high wind watch.” We must be getting to the edge of that big storm system -- in the night, we passed from the clear skies of the Rockies to overcast skies in western Nevada. By the time the high wind watch is lifted, and we get past the freights and back up to speed, we’re definitely late. The conductor announces it’s raining in Reno, snowing hard on Donner Pass, and raining hard in Sac’to. His estimated arrival times run upwards of an hour late. Won’t bother me, I have a 10-hour layover!
My younger brother’s in Truckee, and wants to get a quick hug in as I pass through. I check with the conductor, and he lets me know that Truckee is a quick on/off stop, so I call Bro to let him know I’ll be late, and at the door of the REAR sleeper (the only one that will be opened). The conductor jokes that I could feign illness and get off for a day or two, but I’m more interested in making arrangements to drive back down later for a family visit.
It’s still overcast, but there are breaks in the clouds, and the dawn light on the basin-and-range formations we are traveling through is astoundingly beautiful. I didn’t notice exactly where it happened, but somewhere around Lovelock, the tracks parted company with I-80 and headed south through Fernley, one of Nevada’s prettier towns.
Reno’s a crew change, so I have to check about getting off in Truckee with the conductor on the new crew. You absolutely cannot step off at a quick stop without the conductor’s permission (or you’ll get left behind!), but he’s willing and tells me I can get an extra minute because it’s a two-spot stop. I call Bro with the Truckee schedule, and I’m waiting at the door of the coach that is supposed to be opened. Bro isn’t quite on the platform, but he runs to greet me and we get a couple hugs, and a quick discussion about the visit situation, as the train is spotted. A passenger gets off of the rear sleeper, I get back on with the conductor, and we’re off.
This is still track I’ve never been on, so I head up to the Sightseer Lounge. It’s pouring rain, and every little gully on the mountain is gushing waterfalls beside the track. Looking across the valley, we see longs ribbons of water cascading down the slopes. The only place it is snowing (and sticking to the ground) is right on top of Donner Pass. The slopes at Soda Ski Area look soggy and lonely. I go in search of my breakfast companion in coach, and we wait in the Lounge car for lunch service to be announced.
All of a sudden, there’s a commotion in the other end of the lounge car, and I hear the words “man down.” A call goes over the intercom for medical personnel to the lounge car, and several Amtrak employees show up. An EMT card is probably a good qualification for the job (might even be a requirement). The passenger is having a seizure, and the young woman sitting next to him knows that he is an epileptic, so once he begins to come out of it, the emergency is over.
At lunch, one of my meal companions says she was in John Day last summer -- for SolWest! So I tell her that organizing it is my job, and we find we also have the Forest Service in common (she a retired firefighter, I’m a sometime botany and stream surveyor). I certainly can say that I meet “my kind of people” on the train! A quick call after lunch to my sweetie at home, making plans to meet tomorrow. The sun breaks through the clouds, but there’s still water, water everywhere. The next wave of this storm is due tomorrow night, but should be at home by then.
At Sac’to, I check my big bag, and take a walk. Exiting the station, I cross the street, turn right, walk a block and then though a block of parking garage. On the far side is “Old Town,” a charming area with covered boardwalks and lots of little shops. The train Museum calls to me, but it’s only open a couple more hours, and I’m burning daylight, so I opt for a walking tour of the town. At the waterfront is another set of train tracks, and because it’s a Friday night in holiday season, an event train is just pulling out with families of excited children waving from the windows. After Old Town, I stroll through the Downtown Center shopping mall.
I arrive back at the station just in time to find that Robert, the young man, has had another seizure in the station and was taken to a hospital by emergency crew. Sarah is making arrangements with his mother to get his ticket changed and make sure he gets on his new train tomorrow morning. How lucky that a professional caregiver was sitting next to him when he first had his difficulties, and that you can find caring people on the train!
The Coast Starlight is running late from LAX (I find out that it was electrical problem with an engine, and they had to change it out). I chat with a young woman traveling between interviews for a first-year medical residency. She has a couple of days, so decided to take the train. It’s after 2am by the time we are boarded and leave SAC. As soon as the train begins moving, I’m asleep.
Sat Dec 1:
I wake a couple of times during the night to feel the train moving at a good clip, something I find so comforting that I’m immediately asleep again. By the time I wake up, it’s almost 8am and we’re already out of the river canyon, up on the Shasta plateau. If I had not already seen the river several times, I’d feel guilty about missing it, but this morning I’m just glad to have had close to six hours of sleep. Not much to see, the mountain partly peeks from the clouds from time to time.
I check in with my friends from the CZ and from the station. I tell Leanne that I want to know where she ends up with her residency, and we exchange email addresses. I show Mark the schedule for the connecting bus so he can head out to see the Pacific Ocean while he’s here. And I find out from Sarah that she was able to call Amtrak and verify that Robert boarded his southbound train in SAC, and is on the way to his destination, hopefully with no further incidents.
When the train arrives at my little unmanned platform stop, Chemult, the shuttle bus for Bend is waiting. It’s an hour and a half ride, and this is the first time I am on this bus since they built the new Hawthorne Station transit center in Bend, so I’m interested to see that over half the passengers disembark there. It looks like a nice facility with indoor waiting room. My sweetie awaits a short five minutes later at the Riverhouse stop. Not quite home yet (it’ll be lunch, a couple hours of errands, plus a three hour drive), but already there in spirit!
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What an Outstanding Trip Report, Thanks for Posting! :hi: Hope I run into you one of these days along the Rails!
