Notes from the Sky Lounge: 32 Hours on the California Zephyr

Some scattered thoughts from a recent ride on the California Zephyr, an Amtrak line that snakes its way from San Francisco to Chicago. The whole trip takes roughly three days, and i was on board for two of them, as we casually made our way up into the Rockies. We had a special treat for the first quarter of the ride, a historian on board from the Sacramento Locomotive Museum, on his way to Reno. Every fifteen minutes or so, out of nowhere, he would arrive on the intercom, to enlighten us with facts and histories of American ghost towns, abandoned mine shafts, and alkaline flats from the 19th century. These are some scribblings from along the way.

Mcnish, Party of Two

As we pass through the longest tunnel of the Sierra's, over four miles of consecutive darkness, which train conductors have dubbed "the big hole", we emerge into sunshine and snow-capped firs- our historian informs us that we are nearing the site of the ill-fated Donner Party, who were lost in these cold woods for five months, half of them falling victim to the icy fork of George Donner..

We've gradually snaked our way up to over seven thousand feet from sea level in Emeryville, and have made a 180 degree turn to the other side of the mountain, which will bring us back down into the far less romantic deserts of Reno. Our silence is alternatively interrupted by our fair narrator, or the blaring siren of "Sheila, from the Dining Car" who barks out names of those whose reservations for meals are getting stale.


The lounge is a 70's era orange and brown hallway, lined with retro swivel chairs, where senior citizens play scrabble and kids run up and down the corridor, singing at the top of their lungs and snapping picture of nothing on single-use cameras. Half frozen lakes and lumber processing yards from the 1860's, a town that was "burnt to the ground six times in eleven years, it was so wild and lawless" the historian remarks. Sheila periodically interferes, shaking an elderly japanese couple from their slumber. The australian man behind me mutters to no one in particular, "it appears the elusive Mcnish will go hungry.."


The enchantment wore off as we descended from the snowy hills into the suburban, concrete wasteland of Reno and Sparks, Nevada.. Indulged in a few self-made cocktails to savor the afternoon sun, and now approach the 24 hour mark. At this point exactly, tomorrow afternoon, we should be pulling into our destination of Granby, Colorado.

With our intercom host bidding us adieu in Reno and inviting each and every one of us to come visit in Sacramento, the train takes on a quieter quality, as the sun slinks lower and we patiently speed across the desert landscape. This is cooked earth, uninhabitable. This will be the truer test, no amicable host or frozen lakes and fast tunnels- just the lounge, the meandering tumbleweeds, and the manifesting universe of elderly people, grouping together like gray magnetic particles, to discuss real estate dilemmas, the government, bingo games, schoolbuses, anything at all..



"But you think you'd see jackrabbits, or something..." I wake up half-fallen off three slanted seats in the lounge, the landscape sucked completely dry into salt flats, the old people running out of subject matter, but for the bizarre, conspicuous observation now and then.. Here comes another now, with cocktails in hand. Nothing lives out here, as far as the eye reaches, out to the Richter-scale shapes of the most distant ridges.

Morning

Following a restless, shifting night of Japanese snore-torture and shuddering boxcars, shivering in the open plains of Utah, we are awakened to the ever-more familiar screaming voice of Sheila, from the Dining Car. Six thirty in the morning, and breakfast is served, if anybody would like to make their reservations. We are in another mountain pass altogether, surrounded by the snow again, and the sun and moon flank the train windows on either side.


After another four hours of better, sideways, more creative sleep, we arrive in Grand Junction, and deboard for a moment to be struck by blinding sunlight- it is 11:30 in the morning, 28 hours from the point of departure in San Francisco, and everyone is having cigarettes and stretching.



The euphoria is beginning to return to me after the long dark hiatus, and i'm thrilled to be back up in the lounge, soaking in the light and cool reflections of the snow-melt rivers, following our endless tracking with every bend of the rumbling boxcar.