Are we seeing transcontinental energy here? Why coast-to-coast Hari?
Ok so I previous talked about going on two Amtrak trips ; from San Jose to San Diego and from Seattle to San Francisco. That’s exploring America vertically! But I wanted to crank up things by a notch and take on a new personal challenge – can I travel coast-to-coast, from sea to shining sea, across the lower contiguous United States? The trip would entail four days of travel – with a day’s break built into a night’s rest in the heart of Chicago, Illinois. My god what an elongated, lengthy trip! I crossed twelve states – California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virginia – and many geographic provinces and climatic zones of America! And across the states, all the different regions – California’s central valley, the Sierra Nevadas, the Great Basin and Range, the red-brown Colorado Plateau, the mighty Western Rockies, the mid-western prairies, the central Great Lakes, Appalachia, and the mid-Atlantic.
The trip involved taking two trains – two days aboard the California Zephyr, starting from Emeryville, CA and ending at Union Station, Chicago, and one day aboard the Cardinal, snaking its concave up bow-like meander from Chicago to Washington D.C. I could’ve have straight shotted and completed the trip in three days, but two days on a coach seat felt intense ; I needed one day of recuperation in Chicago’s windy city to catch up on sleep, relax, and recuperate.
Alright all aboard and let’s begin!
Day One – Crossing the Sierra Nevadas and Nevada – from Emervyille, CA to Salt Lake City, Utah
Day one’s trip involved traveling from Emervyille, CA to Salt Lake City, Utah, where the train stopped overnight for a break. I left around 9:00 a.m. or 10:00 a.m. and covered ground through the Central Valley, the Sierra Nevadas, and the Great Basin and Range. Unfortunately, I went during late autumn – a time period when this part of the world gets inundated by rain and snow storms – so I didn’t see to much. Nonetheless, there were times the sun’s rays pierced through the thick cloud cover ; I caught glimpses of the state’s eastern escarpment and of Donner Lake : a historical area where the Donner Party survived harsh, brutal winters by resorting to cannibalism as a last resort. We ascended in elevation by about 4,500 feet ( where Renova, Nevada sits ).
Day Two – Into Thin Air : Salt Lake City, Utah to Denver, Colorado
This part of the trip was the most scenic and photographic. We embarked from Salt Lake City, crossing through
Day Three – race through the mid-west, from Denver, Colorado to Chicago, Illinois
#TODO
Day Five- a windy City Break
#TODO
Day Five- across Appalachia and the Blue Ridge Mountains, homebound to the Capital
Ok onto day five – we’re almost nearing the journey’s coda and conclusion. To my luck, the Cardinal felt relaxed – it departed late night from the Windy City and rapidly cut through the flat lands of Indiana’s many farms. The excitement of travel picked pace up again the following morning , where I woke up to the sights of West Virginia’s Appalachian plateau – the remnants of a mountain chain which once used to world’s tallest, but eroded down to its namesake by the powers of erosional forces, sedimentation, and deposition over millions of years. My Amtrak train slowly snaked along the plateau’s many dissecting river and valleys; I took notice of the scenes and snapped extensive photography of memorable sights such as the New River Gorge bridge.
And comes the coda and conclusion of journeying across America … by Train :-O !!!
I absolutely enjoyed the third Amtrak train experience – far more than the first and the second. Ok well the first holds nostalgia- for being the first – but the third dwarfs it experientially. I am also always telling people about the trans-continental Amtrak train trip.
harisrid Tech News 