Almost home – but not quite! Sunday evening I left the Los Angeles area (From San Bernardino), and headed east again. I wanted to ride the Southwest Chief which goes from LA to Chicago – via Victorville CA, Flagstaff Arizona, Albuquerque and Santa Fe New Mexico, Southern Colorado, Across Kansas to Kansas City then through Missouri and into Illinois. I decided to get off in Galesburg Ill, as I can catch my next and final train there. It is the California Zephyr which will bring me home in two days!
It was a beautiful ride across Arizona’s desert which was covered in an inch or two of snow in the eastern part as we entered New Mexico. It was finally nice to see a bit of winter weather as it has been warm and sunny for my ENTIRE trip! I was hoping to see some nice snow storms from the train, but no luck yet. Going through New Mexico, we went through a bunch of Indian reservations. I was surprised at how many there were. I was looking at them on my map. In the north east corner of Arizona, and into New Mexico, there was a huge, huge Navajo reservation that was as big as many states.
We pulled into Albuquerque an hour ahead of schedule which was great, as we then had an hour and a half stop in the city of some of my favorite food. As we approached town, I got on my map program and found a few Mexican restaurants close to the train station. As luck would have it, the closest was about 7 blocks away. As soon as the train stopped, I hopped off and headed for downtown. I walked the 7 blocks, found the restaurant and sat down to a wonderful New Mexican style Mexican lunch. I had combo plate of homemade tamale, and cheese enchilada, both smothered in their amazingly good green chili sauce made with the local hatch chilis, and a good fresh taco! Yum. I then headed back to the train, making it back with 20 minutes to spare, cause these trains don’t wait for nobody!, well maybe the engineer since he has to drive the thing. They warn us over and over again not to stray far from the train, as when it is time to go, they go exactly on time. The car attendants talked about a couple of people that tried to run to a store to buy some beer for the train on a 5 minute stop. The train left, and the people had a $250.00 cab ride to the next station. They made it and then found out to their chagrin that they were not allowed to bring the beer onboard anyway!
The rest of that day we climbed a mountain pass near Santa Fe NM, with some beautiful scenery and rock formations, as well as a number of Pueblos (towns on the reservations).
We came over the top of the pass at 7400 foot elevation, then only dropped about 1000 feet to the high plains of Northern NM and into southern Colorado. Through the darkness we crossed Colorado and Kansas ( so I was not able to see Dorothy, Toto, or any of the wicked witches). Daylight found us approaching Kansas city KS & MO. The rest of the morning under overcast skies, we traveled through the pretty farm land and crossed a few rivers in Missouri, arriving around lunch time at my destination of Galesburg.
I have been interested to see how many junkyards, scrapyards, etc you see along the railroad tracks all over the country, as well as the backyards of some pretty run down places. You also get to see beautiful rivers, farmlands, reservations, canyons, mountains, forests and more that are not available by road. A person misses so much of the landscape driving on a freeway.
It was a beautiful ride across Arizona’s desert which was covered in an inch or two of snow in the eastern part as we entered New Mexico. It was finally nice to see a bit of winter weather as it has been warm and sunny for my ENTIRE trip! I was hoping to see some nice snow storms from the train, but no luck yet. Going through New Mexico, we went through a bunch of Indian reservations. I was surprised at how many there were. I was looking at them on my map. In the north east corner of Arizona, and into New Mexico, there was a huge, huge Navajo reservation that was as big as many states.
We pulled into Albuquerque an hour ahead of schedule which was great, as we then had an hour and a half stop in the city of some of my favorite food. As we approached town, I got on my map program and found a few Mexican restaurants close to the train station. As luck would have it, the closest was about 7 blocks away. As soon as the train stopped, I hopped off and headed for downtown. I walked the 7 blocks, found the restaurant and sat down to a wonderful New Mexican style Mexican lunch. I had combo plate of homemade tamale, and cheese enchilada, both smothered in their amazingly good green chili sauce made with the local hatch chilis, and a good fresh taco! Yum. I then headed back to the train, making it back with 20 minutes to spare, cause these trains don’t wait for nobody!, well maybe the engineer since he has to drive the thing. They warn us over and over again not to stray far from the train, as when it is time to go, they go exactly on time. The car attendants talked about a couple of people that tried to run to a store to buy some beer for the train on a 5 minute stop. The train left, and the people had a $250.00 cab ride to the next station. They made it and then found out to their chagrin that they were not allowed to bring the beer onboard anyway!
The rest of that day we climbed a mountain pass near Santa Fe NM, with some beautiful scenery and rock formations, as well as a number of Pueblos (towns on the reservations).
We came over the top of the pass at 7400 foot elevation, then only dropped about 1000 feet to the high plains of Northern NM and into southern Colorado. Through the darkness we crossed Colorado and Kansas ( so I was not able to see Dorothy, Toto, or any of the wicked witches). Daylight found us approaching Kansas city KS & MO. The rest of the morning under overcast skies, we traveled through the pretty farm land and crossed a few rivers in Missouri, arriving around lunch time at my destination of Galesburg.
I have been interested to see how many junkyards, scrapyards, etc you see along the railroad tracks all over the country, as well as the backyards of some pretty run down places. You also get to see beautiful rivers, farmlands, reservations, canyons, mountains, forests and more that are not available by road. A person misses so much of the landscape driving on a freeway.
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