Home Contents ************************** Gaining altitude over a series of switchbacks. Video of Gaining Altitude. The fruit stand at Grand Junction. Robert, Ebony, and Iana. The station at Glenwood Springs. A blurry shot of a smoke break with Lisa Marie, Ebony, and a girl who had I known the story she'd have I'd have tried to take a good photo. Inside the lounge along the Colorado River. Fifteen Minutes through the Rockies. Finally at Denver.

Day 2 June 10th, 2007 The Utah Desert to The Middle of Colorado I woke up after five straight hours of sleep, which for me on a train is a good night's sleep. Lisa Marie tried sleeping on the floor, but I don’t think it worked out too well because in the morning she’d moved to a seat at the end of the car. Unfortunately, the doors at the car's ends make a lot of noise when people come through them, so this morning when she say I was awake asked me if I could wake her when I got up so she could move into the seat to sleep. I wish she’d have told me earlier since I would have moved to into the empty lounge last night and slept just as well. I got up and left her my blanket. The train was running a few hours late, and the previous night one of the train crew was telling Lisa Marie that there would be no way we'd make our connection in Chicago. That would be bad for me because as much as I like Chicago, that would kill half my time in New York. I spent all of the day watching the world go by in the lounge as usual. I played some cards with Lisa Marie, until Ebony showed up and Iana decided to start dealing. That pretty much ended the card game. Then we spent the day going over the Rockies, until Lisa Marie took a cigarette break in Granby or Frazer Park or whatever and came back not feeling well. So it was just me alternating between watching the great scenery and napping. Grand Junction is always a good stop. There's a little fruit stand and store at the train station that I think is open twice a day for about 20 minutes - just for the train passengers. On my last trip through I didn't know it was there until it was too late, but this time I was prepared, got off the train and got a banana and an ice cream drumstick. Lisa Marie, Jeff (a traveler that was also in the little group we formed), Ebony, and I had dinner together as the train passed through the Moffat Tunnel. The timing really sucked, I wanted a better photo of this side of the tunnel. Ebony's little girl, as usual, was nowhere to be found. At some point Ebony managed to leave the diner (no small feat since while inside the tunnel it's forbidden to pass between cars because of the smoke) to look for her. I managed to break my dental work on a piece of chicken, so that pretty much destroyed dinner for me, and made me a little cranky for a while since I just had it fixed before the train trip and didn't think I'd have to worry about it for a while. Dinner was disappointing. The "waiter" was probably the worst I've ever had. Lisa Marie sarcastically took to calling him "Mr. Personality." His assistant, however, almost made up for him. He was the usual friendly dining car attendant. As much as I didn't want it to suck, dinner sucked as well. I only ate half of my chicken, but that was partly because of the tooth detachment and partly because it was too dry. Even the rice, which I've always really liked on the train, was mushy. By the time we got into Denver we were about three hours late and it was dark. The lounge was still full of people at 11:30pm - I wished that it weren't, I wanted to lay down and go to sleep. The downstairs section was full too, and it wasn't set up in the layout where there's a bench seat down there you can lay on. We were flying through Colorado next to the I-76 at 79MPH according to the GPS. I was still hoping we'd pick up the time we'd lost and get into Chicago on time. Go to June 11th