Copied from Facebook: Goal Reached

Actually, I reached this awhile ago. But here's what I thought about it!

One of my "lifelong goals" was to go across the western US on a train. Well, I did that...and then I kept going! Read on:

heyheyyyyyy. So I guess some people wanted to know what it's like to go across the USA on a train.

So I'm gonna tell you about it. :) And then I'm going to upload pics from the train later, and some videos maybe. But I took so many pics that it'll take awhile to look through them all. I went across the whole friggin country. There were a lot of photo ops.

Okay. So basically, when I did the train trip, we first took the California Zephyr from Emeryville to Chicago. Then we spent about two days there, then we took the Lakeshore Limited from Chicago to Albany, then switched to a coach train from Albany to Boston. (Trains have weird names.) On the CZ I was in one of the "luxury bedrooms" (the nicest option), and I shared it with my mom. On the LL I was all by myself in a roomette (the middle option). Some people road coach the whole way (which is just like sitting in a really nice chair). I felt bad for them.

So...CZ was definitely nicest. That was probably cuz I was in a nicer/bigger room, cuz the scenery was better, and cuz the train was nicer in general. The best part of the trip was from Emeryville - Denver (about 36 hours), because the Sierras/Nevada deserts/Utah deserts/Rockies are really pretty. After that was just cornfields and floods (which were depressing).

Riding the train Emeryville - Chicago is pretty nice (also I was in the bedroom). The bedrooms are fairly roomy, and you have a separate little bathroom/shower and sink/storage/mirror. The two beds are perpendicular to the way the train is moving (which I think helps when you want to fall asleep), and are sort of like bunk beds. During the day, the top bunk sort of swings up out of the way, and the bottom becomes a "sofa". Across from the sofa is another seat, but not as comfortable (though you face the way the train is moving on that one), and there's a little foldout table thing.

So that was us in the sleeping car...the next car over was the dining car, which was really nice. You get to sit at a nice table with these fake flowers and nice plastic plates (so they don't break - but they still look nice). They have a menu and stuff, though it's harder if you're a vegetarian. They still had some vegetarian options, though, except they ran out during the extra meal offered when we were six hours late. There was a lot of meat...I didn't usually eat it, though. The garden burgers weren't that great. D: Hot dog (what I got for the extra meal due to lateness) was fairly good. Salmon and lasagna were great. Breakfast was pretty good, too, and lunch was fine. Yeah.

And there was an observation car the next car over, with these huge windows, places to sit (and stuff to buy to eat), and some skylights sorta. I spent some time there, but not much, since I was trying to get work done, and people were talking a lot there. It was really nice, though. I think they had some "guided tours" of the places we were going through (like, a national park ranger-type person or something would have a microphone and talk about the places we went through as we went through them).

The best part of that trip was definitely going through the Rockies. There was this one canyon we went through that was really pretty - it was raining, and so the water brought out the red colors in the rocks and made the plants look really green and lush. It was really amazing.

The stops were okay. It was super hot and muggy for most of the stops (and smoky cuz a lot of people smoked), but this one stop in Colorado (Granby) was really nice because it was about to rain, so it was really cool and cloudy. It felt good to get off the train and walk around.

On the train, people seemed really nice. More social than I think they would normally be, because sometimes you sit with other people during meals or in the observation deck. The staff on the CZ were really cool, too. Our attendant in the sleeping car was named Reggie, and he was like, the most awesome person ever. The other two staff people I saw a lot, Elliot and Teresa, worked in the dining car, and they were really cool, too.

But it also seems like only one demographic really rides the trains. It was kind of weird. Part of that demographic was that they were all old, so I felt like the only teenager. That was fine, though, since I wasn't really in the mood to make one-day friends. :P

The LL (Chicago-Albany) was definitely not as nice, and NOT JUST because I didn't have as nice a room. But the room definitely made a difference. The roomette had similar bunk beds (except the bottom bed became two chairs facing each other instead of a couch), but not as nice, but that was pretty much all there was. Also, there was a toilet/sink, but they were right there in the room. Which was weird. No shower there, either, I think there was one down the hall. (But luckily, it was only 24 hours, so I just showered before and after the trip and skipped out on the weird shared train shower for this part).

Also, the windows weren't as clean - although, since I was in the top bunk the whole way from Emeryville, I at least HAD a window for this part (even if it was dirty). Also, I think the roomettes in the CZ didn't have their own bathrooms. But whatever.

I had a lot of trouble sleeping on the LL. The train rocked really violently back and forth, and I think because the beds were parallel to the way the train moved, that made it worse. I almost fell out of bed a lot (but the blankets were really tight around you, and there was this net thing, so I was okay). It was also really cold. And then I woke up at 5:45 after very little sleep, and decided just to stay awake...

The dining car was similar, but the staff wasn't as friendly. It just didn't seem quite as nice, maybe. The staff in general wasn't quite as friendly. The attendant, whose name I think was...actually, I forget her name...but she was sort of nice but removed. Not very chatty. The observation car was not nice at all - just some tables and some chairs and somewhat big windows. I spent a little time in there in the morning, though, because it was a bigger table.

I think the food wasn't quite as good in the LL, too, but that might just have been me being grumpy about not getting any sleep. :P That, and the scenery wasn't all that interesting. Riding coach from Albany to Boston was almost better, since the chairs were bigger and the scenery was nicer.

But yeah.

The train.

Overall, doing it across the country was okay, but it took a total of four days (not including the time in Chicago), and the best part of it was all at the beginning. So unless you want to do it just so you can say you went across the continent in a train, then go for it, but really, the part that was the best was Emeryville - Denver. So if I were you, and you wanted to take the train, I would do Emeryville - Denver on the California Zephyr. Oh, and make sure you go with friends and bring stuff to do, because otherwise it would be boring. :P

Oh ya. And you don't always have cell service, and there's no internet. I was only able to send people (mostly Kelly and Janice :P ) text messages because the calls would get dropped, and that was only sometimes. So yeah. Plan ahead. :P