California Zephyr to Denver
After our lunch in Chicago at Lou Mitchell's restaurant and a little bit of a sightseeing walk back to Union Station, we spent a little time in the brand new Amtrak Metropolitan Lounge before boarding the California Zephyr. The Zephyr would take us all the way to California through scenic sights such as the Rocky Mountains, Sierra Nevadas, Moffat Tunnel, Colorado's Gore Canyon, Byers Canyon, Glenwood Canyon, Winter Park, Truckee River, Donner Pass, Donner Lake, and then into Roseville California where we would be greeted by Adam. This leg of our journey would take about 50 hours spread across three days of the week.
Since this leg is so long, I have decided to split up the blog entries for this leg. This blog entry will be about our journey from Chicago to Denver. We would be in Denver in just less than 24 hours after departing Chicago and traveling through Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska and part of Colorado.
Although we enjoy every leg of our rail journeys, we were all very excited about this particular leg. There is so much scenery to see spread out across 50 or so hours of high speed travel and it would be a first for us on this route. There is a lot of US history as well as railroad history on this route. There are countless books written about it. There are even novels about it. This is the leg we had been looking forward to for a very long time!
We boarded the California Zephyr on the noisy, dingy and not-so-impressive platform at Union Station in Chicago. Immense locomotives are idling on numerous tracks while waiting on passengers. Our Zephyr train, alone, has two locomotives creating about 8000 horsepower. These towering locomotive, idling all together, create an environment with a deafening rumble and smelling distinctly of diesel exhaust. You must yell if you want the person standing next to you to hear you. Regardless, we excitedly walk alongside our seemingly endless Zephyr train to get to our sleeper car...
We depart Union Station and Chicago, watching Chicago get smaller and smaller as we head westward toward Iowa...
A new route for us on a long train over the course of multiple days means it is now party time!
As first-class passengers traveling in sleeper cars, we get three free meals each day in the Dining Car. And, I have to say that the meals were quite good for the most part. We were never hungry that is for sure!
Here is an exceptionally rare photo of Sheila and the blogger/photographer...
Lunch and dinner come with a choice of desserts and they were pretty good too! No complaints about that!
Our usual Amtrak travel companions, Will and Sue...
As we approached Denver, we heard more and more mutterings of a drastic change in the weather. We were told we would be entering a "bomb cyclone" snowstorm as we depart Denver. The rain started pelting the windows of the train as we approached Denver...
We made it to Denver, on time...
I really had no desire to wander around in the rain in Denver so I shot a few photos of downtown Denver from the comfort of our roomette...
We pulled out of the Denver station slowly making our way into the bomb cyclone snowstorm... we weren't even out of Denver yet and the rain had turned to heavy snow...
Since this leg is so long, I have decided to split up the blog entries for this leg. This blog entry will be about our journey from Chicago to Denver. We would be in Denver in just less than 24 hours after departing Chicago and traveling through Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska and part of Colorado.
Although we enjoy every leg of our rail journeys, we were all very excited about this particular leg. There is so much scenery to see spread out across 50 or so hours of high speed travel and it would be a first for us on this route. There is a lot of US history as well as railroad history on this route. There are countless books written about it. There are even novels about it. This is the leg we had been looking forward to for a very long time!
We boarded the California Zephyr on the noisy, dingy and not-so-impressive platform at Union Station in Chicago. Immense locomotives are idling on numerous tracks while waiting on passengers. Our Zephyr train, alone, has two locomotives creating about 8000 horsepower. These towering locomotive, idling all together, create an environment with a deafening rumble and smelling distinctly of diesel exhaust. You must yell if you want the person standing next to you to hear you. Regardless, we excitedly walk alongside our seemingly endless Zephyr train to get to our sleeper car...
We depart Union Station and Chicago, watching Chicago get smaller and smaller as we head westward toward Iowa...
A new route for us on a long train over the course of multiple days means it is now party time!
As first-class passengers traveling in sleeper cars, we get three free meals each day in the Dining Car. And, I have to say that the meals were quite good for the most part. We were never hungry that is for sure!
Here is an exceptionally rare photo of Sheila and the blogger/photographer...
Lunch and dinner come with a choice of desserts and they were pretty good too! No complaints about that!
Our usual Amtrak travel companions, Will and Sue...
As we approached Denver, we heard more and more mutterings of a drastic change in the weather. We were told we would be entering a "bomb cyclone" snowstorm as we depart Denver. The rain started pelting the windows of the train as we approached Denver...
We made it to Denver, on time...
I really had no desire to wander around in the rain in Denver so I shot a few photos of downtown Denver from the comfort of our roomette...
We pulled out of the Denver station slowly making our way into the bomb cyclone snowstorm... we weren't even out of Denver yet and the rain had turned to heavy snow...
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