Scattered Thoughts . . .

Note:  I found this blog entry about the very beginning of our cross-country rail journey in my "Drafts" folder long after I had already started writing about this trip so this entry is not in chronological order with the rest of my entries about this trip.  Chronological or not, it is now finished and published. I've been very undecided about how to tackle writing about such a long trip while sharing some of the photos I shot  (I plan to share only a select few of the 8500+ photos) and even a few video clips.  For now, I decided to write mostly chronologically.  If some other topic pops up in the middle of a different topic, I may stray from this plan.   In the months leading up to this rather complex trip while planning for this once in a lifetime cross-country journey by rail, we knew that we would be traveling for a minimum of two weeks.  The plan was to squeeze in as much as possible in this relatively short period of time.  Any delays, any weather problems an

The terrain and landscape that was passing outside our windows had changed.  The changes were obvious.  When we checked our gear and timetables, we found that we had passed into California. We had a speedometer app running in our roomette...  an altimeter app running...  and, when we could get cell service, an active map.  Will had his GPS Garmin running across the hall in his roomette.  I also had a scanner so I could listen in to any necessary train radio chatter or even any emergency radio chatter.   Actually, writing about all these electronics reminds me that we had a little problem somewhere in the middle of that expansive west that I wrote about in my previous blog entry.  In the middle of nowhere, we heard a thump and then the train came to a stop.  This is when having the scanner would provide us some information. By listening to my little handheld scanner, I learned that we had hit a stacked pile of rocks on the track.  Clearly, someone had deliberately piled these rock

It was really odd...  we seemed to make it through Moffat Tunnel and to Winter Park far more quickly than I had imagined.  I felt like we were in some sort of weird time warp.  I somehow always envisioned Moffat Tunnel as being much closer to California than what is real.  Yet, we still had two days left to travel before we would arrive in Adam's new hometown in California.   The first part of this segment along the Colorado River was beautiful even if shrouded in falling snow.  That solid straight embankment along the edge of the river is I-70...   Around mid-afternoon each day, we would venture from our Sleeper Car to the Lounge Car for a few drinks before dinner service to watch the scenery pass by outside our mostly-glass car... We are now putting some distance between us and that bomb cyclone snowstorm at this point and the weather is beginning to clear...   It was somewhere around this point where the isolated, undeveloped, exp