Part 3: From Glenwood Springs, the California Zephyr continues westward along the Colorado River, though the ride is not as majestic as it is to the east of Glenwood. I missed all of Utah — including the buttes and mesas of Ruby canyon, the Great Salt Lake and the Great Salt Lake Desert — as darkness descended while we were still in Colorado. I awoke briefly for a stop in Salt Lake City at 3 am.
At 630 am, I opened my eyes from a NyQuil-induced sleep to find a scene from another planet. We were cruising along a mesa over a massive, rocky desert plain, with mountains in the distance. The entire landscape took on the pink hues of the almost-rising sun, as the train navigated switchbacks through this high-altitude desert. I had no idea where I was. Google maps told me we had just crossed from Utah into Nevada, but the view was other-worldly, like the surface of Mars.
As twilight turned to daylight, the landscape shifted a bit, more lunar than martian, not unlike that of the drive between Southern California and Las Vegas. For more than 100 miles, we paralleled the Humboldt River and Interstate 80. Grazing cattle lined either side of the river, some eating vegetation, some drinking the water, some wading in the water and others chasing their calves.
We passed through Elko, Winnemuca and several smaller towns — settled in part by Basques, I just learned (!) — and I had a difficult time imagining what it would be like to live in this part of the country.
After Reno, the Biggest Little City in the World, the Zephyr runs along the Truckee River as it snakes through the Sierra Nevada mountains. For those building the Transcontinental Railroad 150 years ago, this was some of the most difficult track to lay. We went through a series of tunnels and switchbacks some 7,000 feet above sea level, and at one point looked down over the 1.3-square-mile Donner Lake, named after the party of pioneers forced to winter there in 1846. The lake is as blue as I imagine Tahoe to be.
This portion of the ride, between Reno and Emeryville, I have completed twice before, in 2000 and 2001 — before smartphones and digital photography.
The Zephyr moves especially slow through the Sierras, and it was the only time in this whole trip that I ever felt a little impatient. Would it be possible to cross the *entire* state of California at just 30 mph? Thankfully, after Sacramento, the train picked up speed, pulling into Emeryville only about four hours late, not five, as I had feared.
I stepped off tired but smiling, grateful for the opportunity to have seen and experienced 3,585 miles of this country, from East Coast to West Coast. Part of me wanted to continue with a late-night bus to San Jose, but I decided to save that for morning, and instead checked into a hotel a few minutes from the station, with a view of the Bay Bridge and San Francisco skyline in the distance.
