Tuesday, November 27, 2012

The Great(ish) Amtrak Journey: Part 2

I've returned! My trip to Colorado went very well, but before posting about all of that, I figured I'd finish up my Amtrak story.

The rest of my trip to Colorado was pretty uneventful. After the sun set, there weren't many things to look at, so I watched more TV on my iPad Mini and slept off and on. We did go by a herd of elk at one point, though, and that was pretty cool. I attempted to get a picture, but the lack of sunlight made it a little difficult.

On the way back, I was planning on leaving from Glenwood Springs since I'd be coming from Aspen (Glenwood Springs is where the state highway leading to Aspen connects to I-70), but that ended up changing when I was offered the chance to go to a Denver Nuggets game with my friend Margaux! More on that in my post to come about the non-train portions of the trip.

Anyways, I ended up leaving from Denver. Their station is a bit bigger than Salt Lake's, but in need of some updating. There's construction all around the area, so it looks like that may be happening. I managed to snag yet another bulkhead seat (upon reading about train seating, apparently bulkheads aren't as highly valued as I thought, but they do indeed have more legroom and you always have a full window!) and promptly set it up as my home for the next fifteen hours.


Again, I got two seats to myself for the full duration of the trip. This trip made me very grateful for my height, as I was able to perfectly curl up into a ball on the two seats with the leg rests propped out. I wish I had remembered a pillow, though, although having two blankets made that a little better.

The highlight of this train trip was going through the canyons of western Colorado during sunset. The red rocks looked absolutely stunning in light! So, me being me, I snapped about half a million photos.



All of Colorado was very beautiful. There wasn't much snow, which was a bit surprising for this time of year, but it was still great to see. I highly recommend a trip on the California Zephyr if you're interested in the scenic route between Salt Lake and Denver! And now, I leave you with some Instagram photos...

Lone truck in western Colorado

Glenwood Springs

Colorado River in the mountains

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