Emeryville to Denver (Day one)

 I woke up on my sister’s couch and tiptoed into her car. While her house is close enough to Emeryville station to walk, I was lucky that dropping her off for my next leg was convenient for the both of us. Happy birthday and goodbye.

I sat on the platform and waited. Emeryville is the start of the line for The California Zephyr, an Amtrak route that runs all the way to Chicago. I’ll be riding the whole thing but luckily I have a layover in Denver to break up the journey. This first leg is a mere 36 hours. Board at breakfast and disembark at dinner the next day.

Boarding Amtrak is a hilarious bit of chaos. Moments like these are when our country’s underinvestment in rail really shows. In most cases, you will not have a seat assignment when you book your ticket. The station agent marshaled us to various spots on the platform based on ticket class and destination. I was in the back of the train, coach passengers going far. We were warned not to stand too close to the yellow line lest we get hit by a wayward door like what happened to an unlucky rail worker last month in Richmond. Once the train pulled in, the conductors opened the doors (this is something they do by hand) and came to the platform to give us our seat assignments. I show the conductor my ticket and he hands me a paper seat check, a small piece of paper with my seat number and destination handwritten on it. This is more or less how it was all done a hundred years ago. You can imagine my surprise when I booked a Polish intercity ticket over the summer and they were able to give me not just the seat number but the number of the railcar I was supposed to be on six months in advance. Our crumbling infrastructure.

Hercules Hercules

I’m settling in to my seat and the bay is winding away. The viewed near Hercules were lovely. Placid water and fog hovering just above. We pushed inland for our first fresh air stop of the day. The loco climbed the sierras and I found a new person to talk to. Felicity is in from London and traveling North America for research. Her thesis is on how people in different biomes view climate change. She has spent three months traveling the US and in that time has come to understand it more deeply than many Americans ever do. This is a vast country with a vast array of subcultures. 

Lakes all day

After a few chapters of my book and some funny looking candies from Haight Street I found myself chatting with Maggie. She’s a fellow railpass traveler and nearing the end of her 30 days. A Massachusetts native, she’s been meandering the national parks and taking in nature.

Salt flats and nothingness

The views on this leg have been phenomenal. We’re winding through the mountains on a right of way first blasted through the rock to make the first transcontinental railroad. It isn’t fast, it isn’t straight, but it does track the Truckee River and yield incredible views of the forest and canyons.

As we decend into nothingness the salt flats of the Nevada desert take over. I’ve always found a lot of beauty in the stark void that is the desert. The sun sets and the lounge is cold. Me, my book, and the moon. Happy birthday.

The moon. So beautiful.