Well, we're back now and I thought I'd wrap this blog up with a few interesting statistics about the trip - Over the course of 18 days from June 11th to the 28th we travelled by train (3060 miles) and car (1478 miles) a total distance of 4548 miles through 9 states (Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, and Utah) occupying an area (904,055 square miles) that is 29% of the area of the 48 contiguous states. We crossed the Atlantic/Pacific continental divide 4 times, utilized 8 different forms of transportation (train, automobile, streetcar, ferry b [View Full Entry]

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Let's see, so much to write about. It's funny, when you set out on a trip and intend to do one of these blogs you figure you'll make an entry pretty much every day. What we've found is that you find yourself otherwise occupied during the day and pretty tired at night. Nonetheless, here is what could be the final entry before we get home. The first day in Salt Lake was pretty low-key. We were so late getting in we just crashed in the hotel until about noon, then picked up the rental car. We went downtown and had [View Full Entry]

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This is going to be a longer entry, but I’ll do what I can to make it interesting (unlike much of the rest of this blog). San Francisco was amazing. We took a bunch of pictures while we were there, and we’ll see how many Sarah will let me put up on the blog. Anyway, I’ll return to our story - already in progress. OK, the lounge car attendant just told me that the outlet I’m using on the train is prone to shorting, so this might be a shorter entry than anticipated. Day two in San Francisco was pretty [View Full Entry]

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Let's get the important thing out of the way - the Cards won today, 10-6. Now that that's settled we can talk about everything else since our last update. The train ride up the Califronia coast was amazing. I've heard the trip described before, but it's really something you have to see to really know how tremendous the landscape is here. You'll go along past beaches on one side and mountains on the other. At times you'll look into the distance at the ocean, not realizing that you're actually on the edge of a cliff that's 40 feet above the [View Full Entry]

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What do you want to do today? We asked each other as we gathered ourselves in our hotel room. The trouble with a trip like this is that you have to accept early on that you aren't going to get to do everything you might want to do in the limited time you have in the various places. We knew we wanted to spend some time in Old Town, a nice area of shops and restaurants near our hotel. We also knew that we wanted to go to the Zoo, Aquarium, and Botanical Gardens. On the first day we decided [View Full Entry]

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Well, one night and the better part of the next day later, we finally rolled from the train station in Newton, KS. Since we were leaving around 5:00 we knew we’d be traveling in the dark for much of the 14 hour ride, so when it started to storm nearly immediately after we boarded we knew there was only one thing to do - get a drink. We stowed our stuff, and made our way back to the lounge and viewing car. Even though we were going through South-Central Kansas the views were, at times, interesting. We saw a few small [View Full Entry]

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Well, the great train trip to the West hasn't gotten off to the best of starts. I suppose it hasn't really gotten off to a start at all yet. The lead engine of our train, which runs from Chicago to Albuquerque to LA derailed (really) in Fort Madison, Iowa yesterday. Not surprisingly, this resulted in a bit of a delay in our departure. Now, rather than leaving Wichita at 3:25 this morning, we'll be departing around 4:30 this evening. That means we'll be going through Southeast Colorado and Northern New Mexico while its dark, making the sights significantly more difficult (read [View Full Entry]

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Sarah and I thought it would be fun to keep everyone updated on our travels through the West this summer, so we've set up this blog. We'll try to update it somewhat regularly as we go from one town to the next. For those who don't already know - here's a brief itinerary: Albuquerque, NM San Francisco Salt Lake City/Park City, UT Denver/Ft. Collins/Winter Park That's all for now, but expect more sometime in the middle of next week. [View Full Entry]

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