Riding on the California Zephyr - Day Two

The next day, I woke up to the sights of Utah.  For the most part, Utah was very similar to Nevada.  It was just about as deserty.

 We found ourselves passing through a mountain valley as the sun rose.

 Another meal in the dining car.  As I said, the food on the train is quite good.  Breakfast on the Zephyr is kind of a treat because they make a really good French toast.

 And we continue through the desert.  There are people that don't really like the desert, since I don't get to see the desert all that often, I thought it was pretty neat.  I would imagine like anything else, you could tire of it though.

 For something that is so devoid of life, it is still pretty colorful.  I just love all the oranges, reds and little bits of green.

 The mountain formations are pretty interesting looking too.

 I really like the looks of this one.  I am not sure of the geological reasons for this ocurring though.  I want to say it's from erosion from years ago.

 A river that we passed, unfortunately I wasn't taking notes or I would have known what river it was.

 A pretty typical group of mountains for the desert.

I believe this is the Colorado River.

 Slowly it snakes through the valley.

 Another shot of the river.

 I kind of liked the lone tree against the mountain backdrop.

 Probably one of my favorite stations along the way is the Grand Junction station.  Although this isn't it.  There is a neat little gift shop with all sorts of railroad paraphenalia.

 The folks that used to run this line.

 A shot of our engines.

 The old train station.  I am hoping that they are renovating this because I'd love to see what its like on the inside.

 A Union Pacific Engine.

 A Southern Pacific engine in its original colors.  I think they are owned by the Union Pacific now.

 And back to the mountains.  We are now in Colorado and the mountains start to look a little greener.

 A truss bridge passing over the Colorado River.

 I think this is the Colorado Hotel in Glenwood Springs.  There is a spa here that uses the springs.  There used to be a regular train run between here and Denver.

 This is a ranch that was started by Paul Newman.  I think it is used for wayward boys.  Proceeds from his products still go here.

 More mountains.

 A mountain with a river in front of it.

 I really love the more reddish looking mountains.  Eventually these give way to the more granity mountains of the east.

 Another shot of the Colorado River as it snakes through the valley.

 We are still on the western side of the Continental Divide.

 Another shot of the Colorado.

 A few snow capped peaks off in the distance.

 A shot of the train.

 Another shot of the river.

 I think this is a Bronco that ran off the road.  The people in it survived but they were hurt pretty bad.  There are a few other wrecked cars here.  Apparently this is a popular spot to try to get rid of cars.

 This is very similar to one of my favorite shots from the last time I passed through this way.  In it you can see the three highways of history - the river, the rail and the highway.

 Somewhere in this shot you can see the entrance to the Moffat Tunnel.  It is named after David Moffat who was an early Colorado Railroad pioneer.  It passes under the continental divide.  the tunnel was completed in 1928 and cut almost 200 hundred miles off the trip from Denver to the Pacific.

 The tunnel itself is 6.2 miles long and passes under the continental divide.  I forget how long we were going through it but we couldn't move between the cars as an effort to keep diesel fumes from getting into them.

 A shot of the Boulder dam.

 Another set of snow covered peaks.

 Overlooking the Great Plains.

 Another shot overlooking the plains.

 Off in the distance, you can see Denver.

 In order to get down the mountain, there is a series of switchbacks.  The average grade on the rail is about 3%.  This is one way they keep the grade down.

 And we approach Denver.  As we do, we pass through a pretty major railyard.  This is a switcher engine.

 Another Union Pacific engine.

 And then we pass through a fairly major BNSF yard.

 Another BNSF engine.

 And Denver.

 Another shot of Denver.

A shot of the former stockyards.  Shortly after this picture, I went to dinner and was treated to a pretty fantastic sunset.

Good Evening from the California Zephyr

After several days, I finally got what I think is a decent picture of the train from the train.  This was taken as we were heading down the mountains into Denver.  This is part of a series of 10 switchbacks and is pretty cool to go through.

I will try to do a post tomorrow morning and then a slew of posts once I get home.

Waiting at Denver International Airport

As I said, I do enjoy airplanes but I'm not a fan of air travel.  It's even funner as a modern business traveler because that pretty much means I will always have my carry on of a laptop.  Since I enjoy photography, that's another carry on.  Once past security, it's not too bad though.

I think the thing that bothers me about security is the hassle of it all.  I mean, how come Amtrak can get by with a dog and the occasional scan with the bomb sniffer?  I realize that the terrorist risks to trains is not quite the level of planes but still,  I feel like Amtrak's security is more effective.  I'm not even going to blame 9/11 so much.  I'll blame the shoe bomber though and then the underwear bomber.  Now you have take off shoes, belts, etc.  It seems like a sniffer could detect the bomb residue without having to go through all that.  For some reason, the body scans makes me wonder which company is greasing which Congressman's palms.   And when I get sniffed by the Amtrak dog, I feel it is better than the machines.  But enough whining.

 Hanging in the airport is a lear jet.  For some reason, I thought Lear was based out of the Denver area but this one belonged to some cable guy.

 So after getting to my gate, I found a perfect spot for pictures.  It gave me a few opportunies for head on shots.

 One of the more interesting airline liveries is Frontier Air.  I love the animals on the tail.

 I'm not a fan of the United/Continental livery though.  Sadly, as I was leaving John Wayne, I saw a United heritage plane.  I love their old logo with the two lines on the tail.

 An American DC-9 coming in.  Although this may be an MD-90.

 A Delta DC-9 coming in.   I'm going to guess this plane used to wear Northwest livery.

 A Southwest 737 about to mug a Frontier Airbus.

 A fuller shot of the Frontier plane.

 Another Southwest 737.

 I don't normally see Air Canada planes, so I was happy to take this picture.

 Like I said, I really liked my vantage point.

 Nor do I get to see propellor planes.

 A Canadian Regional Jet waiting to get in line for take off.

 Since I joke around with what I call boat jousting pictures, I had to post this one.

 I think this is a 757.

 A United Airbus passing by.

 The Canadian Regional Jet that would take me to Salt Lake.

And another shot of her.