I was sort of thinking this was done, once I reached my destination, and that I'd just let this site rest as-is. It's encouraging to read the comments urging me to keep going. I've been mulling this over the past couple of weeks, and I thought, if for no other reason than to get my self-portrait with bunny photos moved down the screen, maybe I should tell about the trip back, which turned into quite an experience in itself. Then there was the whole mental transition that occurred the first week after my return.
I thought it would be fun to take the train back. I have memories of a couple of long train trips from my childhood, but in my adult life I haven't gone any further than Portland, so it seemed like a relaxing time on the train would be a nice change from the bike ride down. Time to watch the scenery without worrying about where the pavement ends, and time to finish reading the book I hauled all the way down there.
There's a daily service called Denver Coach that takes people between Scottsbluff and Denver, just a passenger van, but it's easy. Scottsbluff is some distance from any major airport hubs or even the interstate, so unless you drove, there's no one-step way to get in or out.
After being dropped off at the train station in Denver, just me and my back-pack, I started scouting around for a place to spend the night. My train didn't leave until the next morning, and while I thought I could probably sleep on the wood bench in the station (which is very nice by the way), I was hoping for something more bed-like. After a very hot couple of hours of walking around, I stuck my head in at a place just a half block away called The Oxford, thinking, "this is going to be way too expensive." If I've learned one thing on this trip, it's that the concept "expensive" is relative to how much time you've been out in the sun. Turns out, The Oxford is a small but beautiful, historic (1800's), hotel that's been there about as long as the train station. My Art Deco room comes with a flat panel TV! I recommend this place to anyone with a night to spend in Denver. It's also walking distance to the ballpark, if you are interested in the Colorado Rockies.
My train trip is in two legs: The first from Denver to Sacramento (Chicago Zephyr), then north on the Coast Starlight to Seattle. The route west was everything I hoped it might be. The tracks wend their way into the mountains as soon as you leave the city, on sharp enough switch-backs that you can see the other ends of the train in the turns. The scenery is amazing, with almost fifty tunnels by the time you reach Sacramento, including the Moffat Tunnel, 6.2 miles long, which leads across the Continental Divide, at the same time it reaches the highest elevation on the route: 9,270 feet. We paralleled the Colorado River much of the way, and some very deep canyons we went through had no access other than by kayak or the train I was in. At one stretch, we were greeted by the bared backsides of some of the rafters below. I learned later from a friend who used to be a river guide in the area, that that particular stretch is known unofficially as "Moon River."
If I had this to do again, I think I'd plan a stop along the way. Glenwood Springs looks like a great place to explore overnight. Also, thirty-three hours is a long time to go without a shower, and the one negative thing I will say about train travel is that beside no showers, the restrooms are also no place you want to be in for very long. I took more time to read my itinerary in between book reads, and was a little depressed to see that I had misread my ticket. I was due to arrive in Seattle a whole day later than I thought. Well, I figured I had nothing else to do before Sacramento than relax and consider my alternatives, so I went back to enjoying the ride. For the second half of the trip, there was a volunteer rail-historian aboard who narrated the various points of interest as we went by them, including Donner Pass, which is has a story I have always been very interested in.
I slept a little, but not very comfortably, and by dawn I was looking at the sunrise over some of the most barren desert I've ever seen. The parts of Utah and Nevada that we crossed did not look like a place you'd want to ride a bike though, at least not without a trailer-ful of water and a roof, or a well-appointed sag wagon. From the train though, I could admire it with detachment.
By the time I got to Sacramento, I had made a decision. If I could avoid the second twenty-four hours of train travel and get home a day early, I'd figure a way to do it. My layover was nearly eight hours, so I had plenty of time to kill while looking at the possibilities. The train station in Sacramento was nowhere as beautiful nor comfortable as in Denver, so I figured whatever I did for the next eight hours, I wouldn't be doing it here. I grabbed a cab and headed out to the airport, walked up to the Southwest Airlines counter, and proceeded to do everything that is supposed to make the TSA flag you for a body cavity search. It's September eleventh. I show up with one small bag and ask for the next flight to Seattle, one-way. They should have had me on the floor at gunpoint, but instead, it was more like one of those "Yes you can" commercials that Southwest runs. I got a ticket for a flight leaving in less than two hours, had time for some food while I waited. And the flight itself turned out to be only an hour and eighteen minutes flight time. I figured I could have taken a return flight and still made my original midnight train out of Sacramento.
So, just like my bike ride, the conclusion to my trip back suddenly appeared ahead of schedule. I took my first light rail ride back from Sea-Tac, then on to the #66, and then a half-block walk to the front porch where no one was expecting me to walk in. My bike and trailer arrived via UPS the following Monday, in good condition.
It did take my brain a while to adjust to being home. Not sure why, but the next few nights I would wake up not knowing where I was, including one very confusing half-awake dream where I looked around the living room (really) not recognizing it as my own home (in the dream I was staying at a stranger's house while they were away), looked towards the hallway and saw (but did not recognize) Linda walking from the kitchen to the bedroom and thought "oh my God, there's someone in this house!" Not until the following morning did I figure out that I was in my house and who the woman in the red robe was. Very strange.
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