In the last post I finished up in Oregon taking the train south towards California. Here’s the big picture view on where I am (at the start of this post) & where I’ve taken the train/biked so far. Next I’m heading to Berkeley then starting my journey back east.
The views coming through the Willamette pass were awesome, lots of pretty high mountain lakes. I was in the coach car at the end of the train so it was easy to walk back and sit at the rear of the train.
Being at the back of the train also means I got to see the front of the train coming around bends which was fun.
Freight trains are a pretty constant sight when taking long distance Amtrak trains. Practically all of the track that Amtrak passes over is owned by one of five giant freight rail companies. Despite federal law saying otherwise, passenger trains are at the mercy of freight dispatchers and are often shunted to sidings to make room for 1+ mile long freight trains to pass by. These freight/passenger train conflicts are to blame for the majority of delays on Amtrak trains.
If you’re interested in the nerdy details Amtrak posts an annual host railroad report where they spend 13 pages roasting the worst offenders.
Snowsheds like this one protect the rails & trains from avalanches & rockfall in the mountains
The high desert sunset in eastern Oregon just north of Klamath falls.
I woke up a bit late the next morning to the sight of the Golden Gate bridge as we pulled into Oakland.
While in Oakland I stayed with my college friend Rhiannon & her girlfriend Emily. My friends Adam & Candy were also coincidentally in town that weekend for a wedding with Candy’s dog Koda. We did a sweet hike that looked out over SF & the bay.
Koda & Tony became quick friends.
Rihannon is a part of this awesome community garage space in Oakland where she’s able to work on her bike.
While we were there I helped someone pull the engine out of their WRX which was a lot of fun.
We went to the West coast pinball museum where they have this super cool playable transparent pinball machine.
I also got to see my cousin Isabel who’s working on her PhD at Berkely and working for NASA in the bay area.
Pretty flowers have become a theme for this trip and Berkely was no different.
While tooling around with Adam & Candy we got to see hang gliders flying around on the coast. They were suiting up, running off a nearby cliff, and gliding up on the strong wind that was coming off the ocean. It was wild to watch.
Candy grew up in the bay area and her mom graciously hosted us for dinner. After dinner we went for a roller-blade/ripstik adventure and Koda happily pulled me the whole way
The next day I got an early start heading out on the train heading east! This train is the California Zephyr, which goes from SF to Chicago. On this first leg i’m taking it to Colorado and getting off there for the week.
Right after leaving Oakland we went across this huge bridge which was especially fun in the observation car.
Out of SF the train heads east through Donner pass towards Reno.
After Reno we rolled along through hundreds of miles of desert. This train does go though Salt Lake City, but it’s in the middle of the night.
There are a number of “fresh air breaks” along the way in small towns where the train holds for 10-20 minutes and everyone can get off and walk around outside a bit.
The next morning we were still in the desert, now in Utah and getting close to the border with Colorado.
One of the stations we stopped at for a fresh air break had this awesome old “Ski Amtrak” poster. As cool as this is, I think Winer Park is the only mountain mentioned on this poster that you could reasonably get to via Amtrak. Most of the rest are not that close to train stations, and some of them are really extremely far.
Usually the conductors are pretty quiet unless they are sharing logistical info, but this conductor actually slowed down the train and told everyone to look out on the left for this herd of elk!
After the desert we dipped down and started snaking along side the Colorado river.
This is where I’ll leave it for now, the Colorado river was gorgeous and there’s a lot more Colorado content to come!