California Zephyr: DEN-SLC

Dateline: Salt Lake City, Utah
Friday 12/21 12:00am

Dinner last night aboard the train was a blast. We ate with two wonderful gentlemen, one an economics and business major from Cornell College in Iowa, on his way home to the Bay Area for the holidays, and the other a young German man just getting underway on a 30-day, mostly-train based tour of the US. We had a lively and fascinating convsation over our steaks, burgers, pork and sides, that spanned politics (Reid (?) from Iowa was knee-deep in Iowa caucus hullabaloo), the economy, and radio engineering (both of our table guests had backgrounds in production and engineering, same as Dana and I). So we ended the night geeking out over how to jury-rig monaural RCA cables into antiquated sound boards.

Before dinner, we had one more cocktail with our next-door roomette neighbors, Tom and Amenda from Lafayette, and their fast friend Joe from Omaha (my sincere apologies to everyone if I got any of these details wrong, by the way!) We had met this threesome earlier on in the day after Alex spent an hour or so of gleeful screeching and cooing. I was worried he was disturbing everyone on the train, so I brought over the last half of our bottle of celebratory champagne to share. Suffice it to say, the gang was happy to share with us, and we struck up a day-long friendship -- hopefully longer! They were happy enough to share in Alex's delight and we had lunch with Tom and Amenda, where Tom shared the details of his recent solar panel installation. This is something I am definitely going to investigate further. We watched the scenic beauty of Glenwood Canyon scroll past us as we ate our lunches in good company.

The most surprising and rewarding thing about train travel is clearly the company! After the novelty of the train itself has worn off, there really isn't a great deal to do. Either you bring a good book, computer game, or other diversion, or you start chatting up everyone you can. And what a generous, friendly and carefree bunch we had aboard!

We got into Salt Lake City on time. We were greeted by a monumental snow storm! When I checked the weather on Google just past Glenwood Springs and my earlier posting, Google seemed to think it would be a little light snow, highs in the 40s in SLC. Well sir, Google had it waaaay off! It was dumping snow when the train pulled into the makeshift station. The platform was covered about 4 inches deep. It was chaos.

Apparently Salt Lake City is rebuilding its downtown transit hub, including the train station. The stately old Union Station lies shuttered just a couple of blocks from what passes for a train station for the moment -- namely, a pair of run-down, cramped temporary trailers, connected both to the street and the platform by rickety gang planks crossing over the beginnings of new construction on the inter modal transit hub. As I said to Eric last night, "It looks like a frickin' pirate ship!" And it did. Complete with surly deck mates.

The good people at SLC Amtrak clearly did not have their heads screwed on last night, or at least were caught unawares by the storm. The station was a mess of people, luggage, and lost souls adrift amid the falling snow. We stumbled, unassisted, from the train and eventually found our way through the melee to the makeshift station, where the unhelpful station agent told us we would have to wait outside until all of the boarding passengers were cleared. Wait outside??!! Are you high?? Dana has a lot of motherly good sense, and told the guy flatly, "I have a baby, it's freezing out here, I'm coming in," and proceeded to shove past the agent into the dingy station.

There we were met by the smiling face of brother Eric who swooped us up in his warm Lexus and escorted us back to Sugar House for a wonderful night's sleep. Now we're spending the day re-stocking, doing laundry, and sleeping in. Alex is in love with Ali and Eric's two cats, Mu and Epsilon.

Dateline: Glenwood Springs, Colorado
Thursday 12/20 2:30pm

Just pulling out of Glenwood Springs now, just shy of the 1/2-way mark. Had lunch with Tom and Amenda and watched the splendid scenery of Glenwood Canyon. Wowee!


Dateline: Denver's Union Station
Thursday December 20, 2007

We're all checked in and our sleeping car has been assigned. We're about to board the California Zephyr! Breakfast will be waiting for us on board the train -- we can eat in the dining car or in our room. Tipping the car attendant is customary.

Wireless via my cell phone is working, although blogger is CRAZY slow to load. A real throwback to the 1990s.

Alex just fell asleep.

We took a very nice limousine here from home. It was a real treat for all of us, and definitely a good way to travel.

Looks like we forgot the camera, so probably no pictures 'til we pick up Ali and Eric in Salt Lake. That'll be tonight around 11pm.