On the California Zephyr part I: Still in Illinois

(Written on the train on Saturday, posted from our hotel in Sunnyvale)

We went out after breakfast to gawp some more at the buildings of central Chicago. Having explored yesterday towards, though not quite as far as, the lake, we turned the other way, and soon came to the river. I'd known that Chicago was the home of the skyscraper, and had expected to enjoy the challenge of photographing these brutally impressive buildings - their vertiginous height, the way they are grouped, echoing and reflecting each other (and yes, literally too). But that image of the ultra-modern skyscraper is so strong that I had failed to take into account that some of Chicago's skyscrapers had been ultra-modern in the nineteenth century. So as well as dazzling new builings, there are some very stylish old ones, and an abundance - sometimes, possibly, an overabundance - of decorative detail. A sign on the Roanoke Building describes it as ":desined in an unusual Portuguese Gothic Revival style..." Unusual. Right.

We'd come to Chicago just as the place to catch the train, but I enjoyed our less than a day there very much, and caught myself thinking about what I'd want to see 'next time' - an unlikely, though not impossible, event. It helped that the sun shone, and that people were friendly.

At lunchtime we hauled our belongings up to the atation, and eventually the California Zephyr turned up (we boarded 45 minutes late, time which allowed us to learn quite a lot about baseball from the television in the lounge, and which we have begun to make up). If I had known a) that we would be able to check luggage not only for the duration of the train journey but also on the coach into San Francisco and b) that even the smaller of our two large cases would not fit into our cabin, I would have organised my packing differently - but we live and learn.

Amtrak provide a route guide, with snippets of information about the towns where the train stops, as well as those where it doesn't stop. The wonderfullly entertaining thing about this is that its points of interest about each town seem selected to demonstrate that there is, in fact, nothing of real interest about this town. Thus, Princeton "was settled in the 1830s by families from New England. Its name was, according to one legend, drawn from a hat. Its former nickname, 'The City of Elms', is no longer used due to an epidemic that struck the elm trees and killed almost every single one of them. Its major employers include Ace Hardware Retail Support Center and MTM Recognition, makers of world championship rings. Actor Richard Widmark's parents owned a hardware store here during his early years." Still, you wouldn't want to pass through Galesburg without knowing that this was where, according to legend, the Marx Brothers received their nicknames during a poker game in 1914.

We've been on the move for three hours, and we're still in Illinois. But soon we'll cross the Misissippi. Time to head for the observation car.

On the California Zephyr part II: Easter on the train

I thought Iowa was famously flat; but what we saw of Iowa was gently rolling farmland. fringed with patches of woodland, the trees in delicate spring leaf. Illinois was flat.

Even this far north, the Mississippi is a very big river.

The afternoon was overcast and dark, but as the sun descended the sky cleared, and we had beautiful evening light gilding the fields, picking out the autumn colours of copper and gold among the tender green in the copses.

A just off-full moon kept pace with the train all night - and was still there at breakfast, high over the tawny grass uplands of Colorado.

A herd of lamas, all different colours.

Easter Sunday on the train: our fellow passengers celebrated by distributing bags of candy around their group, taking it in turn to read a verse of the Bible story to two small boys who were paraded around the group by their father (and rewarded with more candy after each verse), wearing rabbits ears. Was this the same group each time (and were they the same group as played cards at the tops of their voices)? I don't know.

We seemed to be following the Colorado river for hours, down from the high mountains where it ran between borders of ice at the bottom of V-shaped valleys. Gradually it grew broad and smooth, dirty green as jade. Beyond the river, the rock rose in cliffs, red, yellow and beige, sparsely dotted with dusty green shrubs. The trees were bare and pale, catching the light, (not dead, said our dining companion, spring hasn't arrived up here yet). All that was missing was John Wayne.

(Taking lots of pictures, mostly blurred or snapped just too late to catch the crucial detail or obscured by reflections in the window. But triggers for my memory, and occasionally conveying some small part of what I saw.)

Of course the railway follows the river valleys. After Grand Junction, the river was meltwater, the colour of milky coffee, and for one wonderful stretch (was this Ruby Canyon? Yes, it was) the red cliffs were sculpted into columns and pinnacles like those we'd seen years ago in Utah (and we were indeed approaching the state border).

We dined as the sun faded from the sky over the stratified rocks of Price Canyon.

I slept much better on or second night on the train: we left the cabin door open, which improved the ventilation, and instead of the rumbling of the train creeping into my dreams, I woke when the movement stopped.

We were still up in time to see the sun rise from behind the mountains and cast a pale light across the arid Nevada landscape: flat, dusty, sprinkled with what might be frost or might be mineral salts, tufted with sagebrush (those dusty green shrubs) and one of those picturesque ramshackle settlements our table companions apoogise about - we've twice been told that 'of course, you don't see the best of the country from the train', but I like it.

Deciphering the breakfast menu is a process of trial and error. Yesterday I chose the 'continental breakfast', cereal and baked goods, and discovered that the list of baked goods was offered on an either / or basis, but that the fruit garnish included an entire half-grapefruit, plus a random pot of yoghourt. Today I had the 'sweet option', three fluffy pancakes accompanied by two sausage patties. Our fellow breakfaster went for the omelette, which I had assumed was a healthy option (it has zucchini in it) but whuch is served in a lake of melted cheese, accompanied by hash browns - and a croissant, on which he spread strawberry jam before eating it alongside the rest of the meal. I regret not seeing anyone order the 'marketplace special' which is bicuits (yes, I know, not really biscuits) with chicken.

This should sustain us through the Sierra Nevada: following the Truckee river, its flumes, the ice houses of Boca (or at least, the surviving concrete footings thereof).

As soon as we left Truckee, we were in a snow-covered forest. We've already seen snow, lying in grubby patches by te track, but this is real beyond-the-wardrobe forest, evergreen conifers rising from a thick white blanket. Our volunteer guide from the Sacramento railway museum instructs us to prepare our cameras for a fine view of Donner Lake (and tells us the tragic story of the Donner party), and I'm looking on the other side of the train, at the miniature Christmas trees, each in its own bowl of snow, casting its perfect shadow onto the perfect surface. As we descend, the rock becomes visible around the trees, and where a stream cascades down to the track, and I - almost - catch sight of some impressive icicles hanging by the entrance to a tunnel.

Leaving Sacramento through wetlands, a series of pools, reed-fringed and studded with tall white birds.

ETA: Pictures from the California Zephyr.

* * *

The above written in fits and starts on the train. We arrived, despite our late start and the subsequent announcement that we would arrive early, almost exactly on time. The shuttle coach was slow to set off, because the police detained one of the passengers, but it eventually delivered us via a scenic tour of San Francisco to the Caltrain station. klwilliams collected us at Sunnyvale and delivered us to our hotel, and from here it's a short walk to her house and a fretful desperance. Good company, good wine, talk, food - this is why we came.

And desperance has promised that this morning he will make me coffee with coffee in it. Time to take him up on that!