okay so as ken told you, our train route got all messed up three minutes before leaving nyc. we got to chicago yesterday around 10am and did a little weather research (the red river is rising-ugh)…to find that we should take a train to sacramento that goes through the colorado rockies, salt lake city and over… then we take another train up to portland. 1 extra day on the train.

the train we’re on is called the California Zephyer. we bought one sleeper car and one coach seat. andy sat in the coach seat for approx. 5 minutes and since then, no one has seen it. our sleeper car is laughably TINY (photos to come), but somehow andy and ken managed to share the not-even-twin-sized bed and i slept in the top bunk (uncomfortably small, but great). we woke up in Denver this morning.

This is a double decker train and one part is solid windows, giant windows that line the walls and go up to the roof so we just sit in there all day long and watch. After dinner last night, we sat in the “observation car “ across from a group of older men headed to denver.. boy were they drinking! They offered me shots of something and then more of something else. They were telling each other stories from the war. ever seen that youtube video, drunk history? That was them.. then there was a kid playing the fiddle! Sweeeet!

today we went through the colorado rockies – the highest elevation travelled by an amtrak train. I’ve never seen the rockies before and where the train travels, there is little to no civilization. Many feet of snow and more falling as we went through… there were 42 tunnels, and many really incredible sights.

We’ve got nothing to do other than, read, play cards, eat and talk… so we’ve been doing a lot of it. We are sitting outside the train at Grand Junction, CO right now, enjoying the fresh air. Another night on this train and then we get to Sacramento around 2pm tomorrow. We plan to find a movie theater and maybe some good food and then board our midnight train to portland. If you know of anything great in Sacramento, please please let us know! (so far, everbody says things like… oh man, sacramento.. Ummm yeahhhhhhh)