Apologies for the lateness of posting all this, but I've only now (June 30) figured out a way to get it posted.
Wednesday, June 22
No photos until later. (Now, July 24, it's later. By the way, to see a larger version of a photo, just click on it.)
Well, Margaret and I are off on our Amtrak adventure beginning with the Cardinal from Charlottesville to Chicago. The train left more or less on time.
We have a bedroom compartment with a couch seat for two plus a chair, both with an excellent view out the large window as well as out the other side through the big window in the compartment's door. There is storage space under the couch that will hold our tote bags, but we let our car attendant, Jay, take the other bags and my walker away to some storage area.
We have a private bathroom that is really tiny ... well actually, there is a closet about the size of an airplane lavatory that contains a toilet and a hand-held shower thingy. On the outside of that, i.e. part of the main bedroom, is a tiny sink area. It's all amazingly compact.
So now we are chugging along somewhere near the West Virginia border. On into WV now, and the valleys are quite narrow and often home to collections of small camping trailers along the river banks.
Dinner was okay ... at least it will keep body and soul together ... but the days of fine food in train dining cars appear to be over.
Thursday, June 23
A night to remember. When the attendant converted our space to sleep mode, virtually all of the floor space disappeared except for just enough for one person to stand and open the door to the loo.
A train is a good deal jouncier and jerkier than any ship I've been on, even in a hurricane. After all, you're much closer to the source of the jounce on a train. Also, straight train cars aren't designed to travel curves in the track without jerking. Next please add the almost constant hooting of the train's whistle (really more of an air horn). We are in the first passenger car behind the engine, so we get the full-bore effect. The horn goes off every 4 to 7 minutes, usually with two longs, a short, then another long ... then repeats several times. The entire effect is like trying to sleep in an old-fashioned vibrating-belt reducing machine with the air horn next to your ear. Each of us did manage to doze some during the night.
Arrived in Chicago this morning only a little behind time. Spent the time between trains in the nice Amtrak Metropolitan waiting room with free coffee, soft drinks, etc. Margaret ventured out into the main station and found some delicious sandwiches for our lunch. Then disaster struck.
A red cap loaded up our luggage, my walker, and us on a motorized cart towing a luggage cart. As we neared the train, he cut a corner too close and totally broke one of the handles off my seriously expensive new walker. It is now completely unuseable. I'll file a damage report when we get to Sacramento, then we'll see if we can find some SuperGlue, although I'm not very hopeful that will do any good.
Meanwhile we are rolling southwest from Chicago on the California Zephyr. Our compartment on this train is upstairs. It is generally laid out the same as the one on the Cardinal, but it is a much newer car and seems to have about six inches more room though I haven't figured out how since the loo/shower cubbyhole is only about two inches smaller. It is a lot quieter and smoother, although being taller, it tends to sway some. Also, this time we are at the back of the train and can barely hear the air horn. We should get some sleep tonight.
Dinner was much better than yesterday's, but still not up to the former glory days of train travel. We dined with two men from Vermont who are train enthusiasts en route to a toy train convention in Sacramento. We all had a good time with much conversation and laughter.
Friday, June 24
We are running about 3.5 hours late heading toward Denver. Most of that is due to delays getting across the Missouri River which is 8 feet over flood stage so they can only use one track instead of the usual two. This makes a traffic jam of freight as well as passenger trains. We had delays at the Mississippi (shown at left) yesterday because of the flooding when we got stuck behind 6 freight trains. We even had to skip Omaha with the passengers going there bused back from Lincoln.
We did sleep much better last night, although the tracks are in less than wonderful condition. That makes for a jouncy ride. In fact, track work in Iowa during the night where we had to go very slow added to our delay time.
We had a pretty late breakfast this morning with one of the train collectors from last night and an editor of the Sacramento newspaper -- again, good conversation.
We are still approaching Denver. At least the weather is fine, so our trip through the Rockies should be clear.
Just outside Denver, while climbing the Eastern Slope, our train came to a stop part-way up due to a right-now rock slide. The crew from our train had to go out with crowbars to get rocks and a boulder or two off the rails, even as more stuff was coming down. Union Pacific, which owns these tracks, is sending a crew to finish the clean up. At least we had a fabulous mountain valley view while we waited to get going again. Of course we are now even more behind schedule. Fortunately, that doesn't matter to us, so far.
We just came through the Moffat Tunnel (3rd longest in the US at 6.2 miles), followed by a brief stop at Fraser, CO which is located in a huge bowl-shaped valley surrounded by snow-capped peaks (shown just above to the right).
The upper part of the Colorado River through narrow Gore Canyon with its 1,500 foot walls is so rough that even experienced white water rafters and kayakers can't run it. They have to put in at the lower canyon where the rapids are Class V. The upper canyon is completely inaccessible except by rail.
We totally enjoyed the passage through Glenwood Canyon. It is awesome in itself, and the engineering marvel that is I-70 through the canyon just takes your breath away. Additionally we were fascinated by the Colorado River itself which is running at its highest in 20 years with massive flooding in some areas as well as very angry rapids and cross currents.
After dinner we learned that the NTSB has closed the track west of Salt Lake City to investigate an accident, I think near Reno. I suppose we'll find out more tomorrow, but it appears that we'll sleep on board in SLC then in the morning we will be put on buses to Sacramento. This trip is certainly an on-going adventure!!
Saturday, June 25
The accident was when a dump truck of gravel (or something similar) ran into the side of an Amtrak train. It killed the driver and a woman Amtrak conductor. The woman was a friend of most of our train's crew, and was near retirement. Our train's crew has done a great job of keeping us advised as the situation changes by the hour.
We have gone on past SLC and are now (about 8:30 a.m.) approaching Elko, NV. So far we are about 5 hours behind schedule. The current plan is to divert our train from the Donner Pass route northward to the Feather River Canyon route. We will eventually get to Sacramento, but probably an additional 2 hours late as this will be a longer route.
The phrase "blinked and missed it" must have been coined to describe some of the tiny hamlets out here in the middle of Nevada. We just passed one such that the conductor told us has a population of 12.
Had a nice, albeit somewhat late, breakfast as we traveled along the Humboldt River to Winnemucca. (I've always heard of Winnemucca, but never realized that it's in Nevada). Here we turn north to take the alternate route through the Sierras. Already today we've seen mountain ranges with snowy tops. Unfortunately, I didn't bring along maps to consult mostly because it would have taken an atlas to cover our whole trip. So we don't know which ranges are which.
Most of the day we've been traveling through pretty desolate landscapes with mountain ranges surrounding huge very flat valleys. Soil is sandy with sparse vegetation at best and great expanse of nothingness, i.e. salt or sand flats that went on forever with only a sand fence near the rail line that was often more than half buried.
Now stopping at Portola, NV to off-load everyone not going to Sacramento onto buses for Reno and several other cities. After this, the train will run non-stop (ha!) to Sacramento.
We are in the Sierras now, starting down the western slope ... slowly. The scenery is beautiful. Higher evergreens have given way to a mature deciduous forest with occasional tent campers to view.
Our possible arrival time in Sacramento is now so late that I gave up and canceled our hotel reservation. We must be back at the station for a 6:40 a.m. train, so it's not worth the cost for only 3 o 4 hours. The next question will be whether the train's dining car has enough food to feed everyone dinner.
Sunday, June 26
We did get an early dinner of sorts. The Zephyr got to Sacramento at about 10:45 p.m. which was a full 8 hours late, but enough earlier than expected that we did go get a hotel room for a few hours sleep in a real bed. Thanks go to the night staff of the lovely Holiday Inn at Capitol Plaza for all their help.
So ... here we are, well before 7:00 a.m. on Train 702 headed for Merced, CA. Now, at 1:30, we have arrived uneventfully (which is an event in itself on this trip) at Yosemite Lodge and even had lunch.
The drive up here from the train station in Merced was great. We had a lovely new bus with a friendly and chatty driver plus only a few other passengers. It was a two hour trip, most of which was along a narrow canyon beside an absolutely raging Merced River. The rapids in the river were so big and so continuous plus all the extra water this year, that the entire river was completely white water all the way up into Yosemite with only 2 or 3 exceptions of deep pools above falls. On both sides of the canyon the cliffs go straight up for almost ever! We saw numerous waterfalls, both large and not so large, including Bridal Veil Falls which we should see even better on the tour tomorrow.
The only negative so far is the seething mass of humanity in the valley. I'm hoping that some are weekend visitors only and will be gone tomorrow. The National Park Service needs to take lessons from Disney World on facilities lay-out and crowd management.
