If found, return to nearest Botanical Garden.

Exciting but uneventful 18-hour overnight ride of The Floridian from DC to Chicago, it was (unfortunately) the only time I slept decently in a coach seat on the whole trip lmao

Got to Chicago at 9 am and had about 30 hours to explore. At the outset of this trip I didn't have any plans for Chicago, it was just a place to catch the Zephyr, but I ended up walking about 18 miles around the city I loved it so much!!! Went to the zoo, walked along the Lake Michigan waterfront, tried Giordano's and Lou Malnati's, saw the Bean, saw the Goodman Theatre (where Phil directed a play in 2009), watched My Cousin Vinny in my hotel room and passed out

The next day I boarded the California Zephyr!!! I had a roomette and it was so cozy. Spent the first day in Illinois and the sun set in Iowa. The dining car places you with random passengers so that first night I had dinner with an astronomy professor and an astrophysics professor (married couple), and a former aerospace engineer. We were all like :O and I got to tell them about my undergrad thesis and it was just so cool!! Ended up talking to the couple at most of the fresh air stops and I miss them

Did Not sleep well the first night. Nebraska I have negative feelings towards you

Crossed the border into Colorado during breakfast with a Boston man going to visit his new baby grandson in California, a retired mail carrier from San Francisco, and a businesswoman from Taiwan. There's a longer stop in Denver and everyone gets giddy about climbing into the Rockies. I gasped and hung up on my doctor's office (automated not a person) when I saw the peaks in the distance for the first time LOL. Sat with two girls about my age from NY and CT also solo traveling for fun in the observation car for the next couple hours, during the scenery the Zephyr is most famous for

This trip was my first time west of the Mississippi so it was all just unbelievable. It was like seeing a movie out the window. And Colorado was like that allllll day—my eyes were getting tired partly bc of my still-undiagnosed mystery medical issue which I'm getting a CT scan for tomorrow and partly bc there was just so much to see for 12 hours straight. There is lots of advice online about which side of the train to sit on for certain stretches but you can't lose. I was really awed by Gore Canyon, which you can see approaching here

I did a lot of research about the train but little about the route because I wanted to be surprised and holy SHIT was Glenwood my favorite surprise. I took approximately one million photos and videos of Glenwood Canyon (including the 7th photo in my photoset above) but none of them do it any justice at all. Started crying it was so stunning lol :''') Enormous cliffs taller and larger than anything I've ever seen, literally, and it just went on and on for miles. Every tunnel exited into another stretch of mindbogglingly massive canyons. COOLEST SHIT EVER!!!!

The landscape settled down a little bit after Glenwood Canyon towards Grand Junction, but we got one more beautifulllll show going through Ruby Canyon between Colorado and Utah as the sun set (again, see above). The moon rise above the Utah desert was the biggest reddest most beautiful moon I've ever seen and I cried while staring at it and listening to Neil Young. Tried capturing it on film and failed miserably but knew I'd always remember it anyway, Certified Zephyr Moment

Slept through SLC and the rest of Utah, woke up in Nevada. Stretched my legs in Reno. Cried again when the conductor announced we were in California—I was moving so fast on this trip I barely had time to process things as they happened, but it was a nice "I did it" moment, I really finally made it to a place that has loomed large in my imagination for a very long time for so many reasons.

And I just read a great book about the Donner Party so I was sooooo excited heading towards Truckee and the Sierra Nevada as the landscape started rising again. Since my mind has frozen this area in the 1840s, and as a pretty horrific place, I was a little surprised to realize it's like... a normal lake with waterfront houses and jetskis lol. But I cried again seeing the lake and Donner Pass, imagining what it must've been like in the winter and thinking about those families

And a few hours later we'd made it to San Francisco* (*the train only goes as far as Emeryville, but an Amtrak bus takes you across the bridge into the city)! Saying goodbye to my train friends and heading into the city alone felt a little lonely. So far on my trip I'd felt pangs of "I wish I had someone to share this with," just someone to turn to and exchange looks or debrief about the day and what we'd seen—getting to know people on the train eased that a little, but then I was on my own in a new city with zero familiar faces once again.

To summarize my 24-ish-hours in SF: got In-N-Out for dinner, lived up to the hype; took Muni around; visited the bison paddock in Golden Gate Park (my fave animals! A placard said there used to be 30-60 million roaming the continent, now only about 30k. Unreal); saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time!!!; went on a 10+ mile hike from Lands End to the Presidio to the Golden Gate Bridge to Chrissy Field; saw Lombard Street; got Chinese takeout to eat before catching my next train around 9 pm.

Got some mixed signals from SF as a whole... I was forewarned about the very confusing weather, and after a heatwave back home I enjoyed the 60 degree temps. But I wasn't expecting the weird... technocracy vibe? Ads promoting firing humans in favor of AI, the self-driving cars, overhearing a conversation on the street earnestly praising Elon. It alarmed me!! But nature-wise, one of the most beautiful hikes I've ever done. Who am I kidding it was THE most beautiful hike I've ever done. But oh my gd the STAIRS on that hike, let alone in the city... The very few people I spoke to were friendly

During my almost 24-hour ride on the Coast Starlight I kept telling myself "I can get through anything for one day" and "bad experiences make for good stories." Very beautiful scenery I will never forget—my first Real True Snow-Capped Are-Actually-Volcanoes Mountains, which yes once again made me cry—but no sleep, no food, very intense company. The people you meet on the train...

I'd like to visit Portland for more than 5 minutes someday, very cool passing through Vancouver just bc of #LarroquetteLore, I've been looking forward to seeing Mount Rainier in person for as long as I've known it exists and it's STUNNING!!! Fun being there during its largest-ever earthquake swarm !

And I was worried the weather wouldn't be clear enough to see it! I couldn't get away from her if I tried during my time in Seattle

Got to Seattle around 9 pm but it wasn't dark yet (!), so, invigorated by the beautiful sunset and finally being free from my seatmates and the big fucking mountains of my dreams, I walked around the waterfront for a while. Magical night!!! I KNOW it's a cliche that everyone falls in love with Seattle's beautiful summer then find they can't handle the other depressing nine months of the year. But I fell in love sue me!!! I'd love to visit again when the weather sucks just to try it out

Had less than a full day in Seattle, so I visited Pike Place Market, Kerry Park, the park(s)(?) around the Space Needle, the library, a lot of time on the waterfront. Then I hung out in the train station, hung out longer bc our train was delayed an hour, and finally boarded the Empire Builder headed east.

Had another roomette, here's my POV of my room + the dining car

I did not take as many photos on the Empire Builder, partly because after the first half of the trip east it issssss... not quite as scenic as some of the other trains I was on? No hate to the Great Plains! I love Little House on the Prairie! But after almost two weeks on the train, landscape fatigue is real. AND tbh the biggest reason I didn't take as many photos is I was talking to so many more people, much more often. The California Zephyr had the best views no doubt but I enjoyed my experience on the Empire Builder so much bc I put myself out there as much as I could.

The first evening I had dinner with a Nebraska farming couple and a guy who works on an oil tanker in the Gulf of Mexico. Then I spent almost three hours in the observation/sightseer car but took almost no photos of the beautiful Wenatchee Mountains because I was talking to a retired couple from the UK until it was too dark to see anything. I guess that was the closest I came to the "life-changing encounter on the train" people talk about sometimes. They were funny and lovely and shared what they love about the United States and how important it is to travel, and we talked about books and the future and my writing (I made it no secret to anyone I spoke to that I got laid off and am currently aimless lol). Just the deepest conversation I've ever had with people I just met, and more honest than a lot of others.

I can't say enough how cool it is to meet people on the train!!! I've been shy for as long as I can realistically remember so I don't have a lot of experience talking to strangers. But most everyone was so nice and interesting and easy to get to know. Most of the time, after a meal, you sorta awkwardly excuse yourselves and say goodbye. One night I had dinner with a retired music therapist from North Dakota and a couple from Chicago, and we ended up talking so long the staff asked us to leave because the dining car was closing for the night!

(Also very funny how you sort of dance around politics bc we are, after all, strangers, and trying to remain polite—but at that particular dinner, after a few tentative comments that were well received, we all acknowledged a likemindedness with a big sigh of relief LMAO we were like man shit's fucked rn isn't it!!! That guy SUCKS! Ugh I love camaraderie)

We had a long stop in Nebraska and I ended up standing on the platform hanging out with maybe a dozen other passengers and a car attendant, who told us stories about horrible shifts and nightmare passengers, and I made everyone laugh which felt like the highlight of my trip (if not my life). Brings tears to my eyes rn and makes me want to write corny things bc strangers really are just friends you haven't met yet 😭😭😭😭😭

This is already unbelievably long so I should wrap this up, and that's pretty much where the interesting part of my journey ends. Got back to Chicago, where I took one of those architecture boat cruises at sunset (EXTREMELY cool) and spent all day in the Art Institute of Chicago (also extremely cool, a common theme of Chicago I'm learning). Waited out a thunderstorm in a Shake Shack. Caught my 20-hour train home that night, did not sleep a wink, ended up watching And Just Like That on my phone at 4 am.

Got a little emotional crossing the Potomac. After all the incredible landscapes I'd seen across the entire country, over 7000 miles in two weeks, famous mountain ranges and deserts and jaw-dropping canyons and a whole new ocean, my home river flowing through the Appalachians where I grew up looked more beautiful than I'd ever realized. Nice to finally see something familiar again and so fucking beautiful