Tonight I board the California Zephyr, heading West to Salt Lake City. I’ll be attending the final screening of “Beast of the Southern Wild” at the Sundance Film Festival, a show I had the pleasure to work on (visual effects compositing), and one that has “Ripped through Sundance”! But that story is for another forum.
This story is about my journey through the Rockies and beyond aboard the Zephyr!
I hope to post location, interesting (to me) sights, and news along the way using my mobile phone whenever service is available.
Wonder if Ms. Mookie - a frequent reader and poster here - and her Driver will be there at the platform in Lincoln to wave goodbye and wish you a good trip ? [swg]
Anyway, thanks for the ‘heads-up’, and we’ll be looking forward to your ‘real-time’ (almost) trip report !
Might be interesting, too, to see who your fellow passenger are, and what they might have to say about the trip and the sights along the way.
Do you have a scanner ? If not, it might be worthwhile to find someone on the train who does, so you can be better informed about the railroad’s operations.
Ms. Mookie and her Driver have a 10:30 pm bedtime, so won’t make the departing. But I do hope Amtrak is on time at least tonite. Sometimes it gets lost in the dark coming to Lincoln. (and the midnite+ boarding is a bite…)
My goodness! I dont think I’ve ever encountered a fellow Lincolnite online this quickly before!
Speaking of getting to Lincoln, I still don’t understand a thing of this new Arena and how they’re planning to move the station tracks. I would say its a shame to abandon the old station building, but Amtrak barely uses but a small hallway on the side of it anymore anyways. If it wasn’t for the Haymarket, I’d say that building’s days are numbered. Of course, maybe they already are.
And I’m on board. Shucks, they have me seat #1 which means I get to feel how smooth (rough) the rails are.
I only counted 7 superliners on today’s train. 4 up front, the lounge, diner then two on the back.
Wistle just blew and we’re moving. Bye bye Lincoln.
And what do ya know, interesting spotlight #1: A guy who is clearly drunk has lost his seat. The conductor is trying to help him find it but the drunk guy can’t even say where he’s traveling to.
One last bit of fun before bed. While in Hastings, we stopped just so that my window was on the end of the platform canopy with the “Hastings” sign. I decide I’d try for a quick snapshot so I pulled out the DSLR.
I took the photo and then we started moving and the idea hit me, let’s play with the lights through the window of a moving train! I set up some 3 second exposures and just started clicking as we made out way through Hastings. I must say some of them look really cool! Perhaps in Denver I can try and post them.
I guess I’ll have to improvise until morning. 