Trains

Chicago

After leaving Memphis for yet another overnight bus, I left the South and arrived in Chicago at 9am. I had a few hours to burn, so I took in a few sights: the river, the Lake, and of course the Willis Tower. Now that is a sight. Nearly twice as tall as Canary Wharf, I had thought the Empire State was a big lady, but the Willis Tower is absolutely enormous. What’s more, it takes up it’s own block, so you can walk all the way around it. But I wasn’t in Chicago long, before I boarded a 52-hour train to Fresno.

Trains

The 2,500 mile train ride was fantastic. In the first day we shot across Illinois, crossed the Mississippi (again), went through the farmland of Iowa, Des Moines, into Nebraska and Omaha, by morning were just coming into Colorado. Stopping in Denver (cold), we then went up into the magnificent Rockies for some seriously epic views. We then came down the other side after crossing through the Moffat Tunnel into Utah, Salt Lake City (creepy) and Nevada, into the Sierra Nevada range and then stopping at Sacramento, which was where I had to get a connecting train. Saying goodbye to the friends I had made on the two-day train ride, I went into quaint Old Sacramento for a beer, which I had with a nice retired guy who was taking a well-earned respite from roadtripping with his wife in the bar, before getting on the train to Fresno.