The Empire Builder is a train. It runs out of Chicago's Union Station: A palatial structure frequented in a Holywood Heyday by the stars of stage and screen, especially screen, but in August 1977, by me.
I am headed for King St Station in Seattle. I am feeling like a pioneer, heading west into Unknown Territory. I am already sick to death of trains, having rattled across Pennsylvania,New York State, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois to get this far. I have, Wisconsin, Minnisota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho and Washington State still to come, and they are all BIG in the sense of WIDE. I appreciated 'wide' by the second day of trailing across Wisconsin at 20 mph because that was all the track could bear. I know I couldn't actually walk faster than the train: it just felt like it.
Like all rugged pioneers I travelled 'coach' - a euphemism for having nowhere to lay my head. I roughed it. It was tough. At the end of three days, I was in need of a bath, a hair wash, a pillow, a sleep.
I tease Ray about it all the time. He had talked me into the long route across this amazing Continent with the promise of mountains. I longed to see mountains, southern England, whilst enjoying its own special beauty, lacks them. Wales and Scotland claim them, but to be honest, they're a tad on the low side. I was slavering with anticipation. The Rockies - a range of mountains, real, high ones, with a snow line and forests, and valleys with lakes. We went through them, of course we did, but at the dead of night, and not a peak or a valley did I see.
So I have been a bit disgruntled for forty years, and now I have let it go.
The California Zephyr also departs from Chicago, but I didn't clamber aboard until Omaha, Nebraska. This time I have a bed, and a private cabin and meals included. It feels like cheating.
Did you know, from the first glimmer of light to the sun appearing over the horizon takes more than hour?? How can you get to be 66 and not know this??? It does. It was amazing to watch, first day in.
Second day: The Rocky Mountains. From Denver Colorado to Provo, Utah I watched the mountains and the desert unfold from the comfort of the Observation Lounge. And that wasn't all - Ray had thrown in the Sierra Navada range too.
Time to go. Off to Yosemite in a Camper Van.
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