**Hours of gorgeous scenery!!**I haven't blogged since last Easter!! I can't believe how young the children look less than a year ago!! Obviously it's easier just to upload a bunch of photos to Facebook and call it a day. However, I wanted to start out the new year with a blog about our train trip to California in case anyone is researching it on google like I did before we went. It was so helpful to hear other people's accounts of their trip so I could get a little better grasp of what to expect. We didn't give the children many details because we wanted it to be as much of a surprise as possible but as a mom who needed to pack for six people on such an adventure, I needed a little more info!! There was even a youtube video from a guy who had walked the length of the train showing the different areas and that was REALLY helpful!
I'm not going to repeat any photos from our trip on the way out there since those are already on FB, and I'm not going to upload pictures from San Francisco since those are already done too. However, just one note about San Francisco....it is a VERY COOL city and even though we were able to do many of the major highlights, we only scratched the surface of what there is to do. We could have ridden cable cars all day long! (If the signs were correct, they are only going to be using shuttle buses instead of the cable cars from January through the summer of this year while they do a bunch of reconstruction. I'm sure glad we made it there before that happened!) The Golden Gate Bridge is also an incredible sight that can be viewed from so many different angles. I don't think I could tire of looking at it. So, if you have the chance to visit we highly recommend it. The people were very friendly, there are a million different places to eat, and the Bay and the Pacific Ocean are amazing.
As for Amtrak, that was a wonderful adventure in itself!! We enjoyed the fact that we were in no rush and had no schedule that we were trying to keep...I would advise that mindset for a trip of this length (52 hours each way...Chicago to San Francisco). That being said, to my knowledge we stayed very much on schedule and even arrived at many of the stations ahead of time. All the different people we came into contact with that work for Amtrak were very helpful and kind...from the train crew to the bus driver to the ticket salespeople, etc. We were very impressed with how the "train part" of our trip went. It's interesting how you can get acquainted with many people during the train trip and we met some very nice ones. There was even an Amish family of 9 from the northern part of our state that traveled all the way back from California with us. It was extremely interesting to talk with them and learn more about the train adventure that they were on (they took a different route out to California).
**Eating breakfast shortly after leaving San Francisco while our milk was still cold in the cooler!**We didn't put out the extra money for a sleeper car but a friend of ours said they had felt a little claustrophobic in their family suite a few years ago. We were very happy with the roominess of the coach seats and on top of that there was plenty of space to stretch out in the observatory car either at a booth-like table or at comfortable outward facing chairs and couches. Plus the windows in the observatory car go halfway across the ceiling so that you can truly appreciate the mountains when traveling through them.
The dining car is also a lot of fun and we found the food to be quite tasty. However, I took as much food as I possibly could including a small cooler so that we wouldn't have to shell out a lot of money for the dining car which can be pretty pricey, especially at dinner time. There is a snack bar on the bottom floor of the observatory car that sells many different kinds of snacks, drinks, sandwiches, breakfast items, etc. so that was helpful when our food stash ran low. A popular item to carry on with you is the Ramen noodles in a bowl that you only have to add boiling water to (thanks to the snack car attendant who fills it up for free!)
**Traveling through the Sierra Nevadas**The California Zephyr route is supposed to be the most scenic of all Amtrak routes and we can see why! The areas of the Rockies and Sierra Nevadas are exceptionally beautiful although there were many other scenic areas as well. In the Rockies you pass through the Continental Divide, several canyons, many tunnels, along the Colorado River for miles, etc. The handiwork of our Creator is truly breathtaking and it's easy to sit there and stare out the window for hours just taking it all in. Of course the snow added to the beauty especially in the Sierras where it was a couple feet deep in parts. There are a few stops along the way where you have time to get out and breathe in the fresh air and take a picture but for the most part, the stops are just for letting passengers off and on. There are stops all through the night but they don't make any announcements over the speakers from 10:00pm to 6:30am so you don't even notice if you're asleep. From Reno, NV to Sacramento, CA both ways there was a train museum curator that got on board and talked about the many historical areas that we were passing through, it was very interesting.
**Traveling along the Colorado River**Now that I am talking about all these different things it almost makes me wish I had taken more pictures of the inside of the train, however, I don't want to ruin it too much for anyone thinking about traveling this way, plus you can find quite a few pictures already on the internet. One thing that we did find out on the first leg of our trip out was....try not to sit in the rows closest to the doors between the train cars. The reason is just for noise when you're trying to sleep. To pass from one car to the other you just press a button and the doors open automatically and that's not too noisy but while the doors are open you can hear the noise from the tracks and that can be quite loud. Thankfully we were able to change seats after the first night and then on the way back we knew what the best seats were :-)
**With a sleeping bag to pad the floor, Carlie was able to sleep on the floor giving Hallie two seats to stretch out on. The same went for Zack and Brock.**So that's our trip in a "nutshell". We have hundreds more pictures that will help us "relive" the memories anytime we want to go back through them. It was fun for the children to add three more states to their list giving Hallie a total of 38 U.S. states visited, Zack, 37, and Brock and Carlie, 34 each. We are so thankful for the ability to travel this great country of ours....the most beautiful sights are the ones God created for us but we also enjoy seeing the man-made structures that were built by some very ingenious and creative people (thanks to their God-given brains!)! We appreciate our family and friends who don't mind us sharing our trip with them and who keep in touch with us along the way. We trust all of you will have a blessed, healthy and happy 2011!!
