8 ms·

This isn't really my kind of writing, so forgive me if my response is somehow impertinent, but there is a very good reason to cross the U.S. by train, which is

This isn't really my kind of writing, so forgive me if my response is somehow impertinent, but there is a very good reason to cross the U.S. by train, which is that this is an enormous, beautiful continent and the train takes you to otherwise untouched parts of it that aren't visible any other way. I took the California Zephyr from Denver to San Francisco (technically Emeryville) a few years ago and it was one of the best experiences of my life. Truly unforgettable. I hope I get the opportunity to do the Empire Builder and Southwest Chief routes at some point!

thatfrenchguy 4y ago
Yup, Amtrak from Chicago to Emeryville is probably one of the most impressive routes one can take, and I feel sad for folks who will never get to experience it.
pengaru 4y ago
Agreed re: Zephyr. I took it from SAC to CHI last month, even riding coach it was a pretty good two days I spent mostly fasted, drinking black coffee while programming in the observation car. It's the perfect duration for a short fast and that eliminates a bunch of the bathroom and food needs, just caffeinated coding with great views. And in the end I've gone from CA to IL for ~$150 with a mountain bike checked to boot. Something worth noting is the dining car still wasn't available to coach travelers on my trip, only sleeper cars could access it. Vestiges of the pandemic according to the announcements. It felt a bit like skimpflation to me, but they still had the little snack bar below the observation deck available to all.
- kediz 4y ago
  That is amazing! Hope the view didn't distract your ability to focus since it is so gorgeous. Does the train have WiFi? Or you are just coding offline?
  - mcv 4y ago
    I don't know about US trains, but many European trains offer free Wifi. I hope the ones in the US do too.
    - db48x 4y ago
      It’s not important whether the train has a WiFi router or not. What is important is what the WiFi router connects to. I don’t know what is common on European trains, but in the US they connect to whatever cell–phone network is closest. That is ok in urban areas, but in the US there are wide stretches of countryside where nobody lives. Somehow the phone companies never end up building cell towers in the middle of the deserts or on top of the Rockies. The train could easily be 50 or a 100 miles away from the nearest cell–phone network at any given time. https://www.google.com/search?q=amtrak+rockies&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=amtrak+rockies&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=amtrak+sierra+nevada https://www.google.com/search?q=amtrak+sierra+nevada https://www.google.com/search?q=amtrak+desert&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=amtrak+desert&tbm=isch
  - dionidium 4y ago
    The train does have free WiFi, but my experience with it is pretty bad. You're also often remote enough that you can't use a cellular hotspot, so I wouldn't ever travel on Amtrak assuming you'll have a reliable Internet connection the whole time.
    - db48x 4y ago
      The train’s wifi is just hooked up to the same cell networks anyway. Maybe soon they will have Starlink instead.
      - kibwen 4y ago
        Starlink appears to require the dish to be stationary.
        coder543 4y ago
        It doesn't.[0] Nothing about Starlink inherently requires the dish to be stationary. Starlink is being integrated into several airlines[1][2] over the next year, and I'm certain other airlines are exploring Starlink as an option... the existing in-flight internet options are terrible, so Starlink could make a real difference there, especially over the oceans. Proper support for moving vehicles probably benefits significantly from a dish designed for that, but airlines, trains, cruise ships, yachts... there are many markets where such a dish would be valuable, so Starlink would be pretty dumb not to be designing one that works well for that. Hawaiian Airlines certainly isn't planning to just bolt the existing dish to the outside of the plane and hope for the best. [0]: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1529089543969943553 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1529089543969943553 [1]: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/25/spacex-signs-hawaiian-airlines-for-free-starlink-wi-fi-on-flights.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/25/spacex-signs-hawaiian-airlin... [2]: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/21/spacex-first-starlink-inflight-wi-fi-deal-with-charter-airline-jsx.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/21/spacex-first-starlink-inflig...
        db48x 4y ago
        Current subscribers are only authorized to use their dish in one specific area. However, this has more to do with capacity planning than anything else. Starlink recently announced a slightly more expensive plan that allows the user to roam from area to area without contacting customer support to reauthorize them for each new location. And as someone else pointed out already, the are definitely working on providing service to customers on boats and planes and other moving vehicles. I doubt they will ever make a dish designed to be mounted on the roof of a car, but larger multi–passenger vehicles are an obvious move. Incidentally, Starlink dishes showed up on the landing barges used by SpaceX some time ago; they use them to stream live video of the landings now.
  - pengaru 4y ago
    Mostly coding offline, but I did have a cellular hotspot that managed 4G LTE for most of the trip. I didn't investigate the train's WiFi since my needs were covered. There was one state I didn't seem to have any cell service at all, Wyoming maybe? It seemed very similar to driving cross-country via i80 in terms of cellular coverage, with a few additional dead-zones where only the train goes. But in those spots the scenery is so beautiful you won't miss the cell network.
- smcl 4y ago
  That's a pretty incredible price, was it a special offer?
  - pengaru 4y ago
    Not a special offer, just booked a month in advance before the train filled up.
    - secabeen 4y ago
      That is the lowest bucket for the Zephyr, a fare of 220 or 270 would be more common: https://www.amtraktrains.com/threads/long-distance-train-coach-sleeper-fares-buckets.77062/post-956782 https://www.amtraktrains.com/threads/long-distance-train-coa...
      - pengaru 4y ago
        It required very little effort to get the ~130 coach rate though, the biggest price knob seemed to be booking far enough in advance. What was far more challenging was getting a "trainside checked bike" ticket. The Amtrak web site just kept saying sold out for the +bike option no matter what I tried. But I had no trouble getting the same rate +bike when I went to the SAC station IRL and spoke to a ticketing agent. Apparently my problem was ending the trip at NPV instead of CHI, because NPV can't handle checked bikes. The web site is awful WRT +bike tickets. Maybe this will prove helpful for anyone reading wanting to go ride some distant trails via Amtrak.
        secabeen 4y ago
        Yeah, if you're flexible on time, far enough out, and willing to ride coach, it's definitely doable. Summer is also peak season (more sunlight); avoiding June-August helps too. Amtrak's system is terrible when something you want is not available, it usually reports "Sold Out" or "No Train Service" when the actual issue is that there is no train that day, or no facility for checked luggage, as you describe.
- db48x 4y ago
  It’s definitely skimpflation (great word, btw). They eliminated traditional dining service entirely on several other routes. Instead of sitting at a table with other passengers having a nice conversation while waiters take orders and serve meals, everyone now gathers quietly in the dining car waiting for a single waiter to prepare tv–dinners and shout out room numbers.
  - CaliforniaKarl 4y ago
    Per https://www.amtrak.com/onboard/meals-dining/dining-car.html https://www.amtrak.com/onboard/meals-dining/dining-car.html, it looks like traditional dining is available west of Chicago/San Antonio.
    - db48x 4y ago
      Yep. I was super disappointed the last time I went cross–country. The service was so bad that I haven’t bothered since then.
- kibwen 4y ago
  Note that while the Zephyr between CA and Denver is a breathtaking journey, the span from Denver to Chicago is nothing but an infinite plane of corn punctuated by a crossing of the Mississippi. If you're just in it for sightseeing, you can skip half the trip.
  - splonk 4y ago
    For some of us taking a train across the Mississippi was part of the point of the journey, but yes, the scenery is considerably better from SF/Emeryville to Denver.
fatnoah 4y ago
I've flown across the country many times, but have only done it on the train once. I ended up doing a loop going from Boston to Washington DC to Chicago to Sacramento to Los Angeles to San Antonio to Chicago and finally to Boston. The whole trip took 10 days, with 7 nights on the train and 3 off the train. In the roughly 8,800 miles of that trip, it was amazing to see so much of the country that I'd only flown over. Time also seemed to stand still, as I really lost all sense of place and time. It was the most relaxed I've ever been in my live. I agree that if anyone was to do just one overnight train trip in the US, they should do Chicago and/or Denver to Emeryville. In fact, that was the leg that seemed to have have the most tourists, vs. the route across Texas which was more people going from point A to B that didn't want to spend 12 hours on a bus. One bonus of the trip was having a glass of wine and some cheese with Gene Shalit on the final leg. Apparently he was a regular and knew many of the station and train staff by name.
- dionidium 4y ago
  > I agree that if anyone was to do just one overnight train trip in the US, they should do Chicago and/or Denver to Emeryville. The other routes I've done are Charleston -> Savannah, Fort Worth -> Austin, Boston -> Chicago -> St. Louis, Boston -> Portland, St. Louis -> KC, and many trips to every stop on the Northeast Corridor. They were each interesting in their own way, but I just like trains and for a more general audience I'd say the Zephyr is really on a totally different level.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  > I agree that if anyone was to do just one overnight train trip in the US, they should do Chicago and/or Denver to Emeryville. Also (from experience) you might be able to get your job to pay for it if you work in Chicago or Denver and are attending an SF area conference. Roomette instead of coach is the way to go if possible.
duxup 4y ago
Reminds me a little of the experience described in song “America” by Simon & Garfunkel. Although I think they’re on the bus, but much the same experience.
javajosh 4y ago
Another good reason is if you find yourself on a no-fly list, without trial or recourse.
arrrg 4y ago
But why then not pick the car? The US are mind-bogglingly car-centric. If you want to explore them, chances are you need a car even if you then want to hike, bike or do whatever. On our road trip from Miami to Seattle (via New Orleans, Los Angeles) the only National Park that wasn’t offensively car centric was Carlsbad Caverns, even though they did want to blow a hole in the mountain in the 1930s to change that. (Maybe Shark Valley in the Everglades, too. Though in both cases you need a car to get to the entrance.) I get the remote wilderness (no matter how touristically attractive) needs cars. It‘s just that if you take the train you can’t really get there. Unless you get out and rent a car all the time. I certainly didn’t enjoy any of the cities. They were all car-oppressed hellholes that aren’t much fun to be in.
- Arainach 4y ago
  Road trips are long and require focus. I've done plenty of long US road trips: Chicago to Seattle, Chicago to to East Coast, Michigan to Florida, Seattle to southern California, a loop of the southwest starting and ending in Vegas, etc. I've done road trips throughout my life (Seattle to Socal was less than a year ago) and do smaller (~3hr 1 way) ones on a regular basis (Seattle to Portland or Vancouver). I've also taken trains in the US and in other countries and it's a different experience. Having to focus on the road for more than an hour at a time wears you down. If you have a car full of people such that you can rotate drivers, it's bearable but that just means sharing the load. In comparison, in a train I can simply relax and enjoy the sights and the trip. If there's a beautiful mountain I can focus on it without worrying about a car or animal in front of me. If I want to eat or drink or use the restroom I do without having to wait miles to find somewhere to pull over. If I want to read or use my laptop or have a beverage (even alcohol if I want), it's fine. I've driven Seattle to Portland dozens of times. I've also taken the train several times. When I drive, I arrive in PDX tired. When I get off the train I am invigorated and ready to start my day (even though when I've done it I usually had to get up at 4 to catch a 5:30AM train, times which usually don't exist for me and should seemingly leave me tired) As far as exploring cities: while infrastructure in the US is bad, there is a strong correlation between cities worth exploring and some form of bus/bike/scooter rental. Train stations are also usually centrally located. If I want to explore I go walking and there's plenty to do within a few miles of the station. If it's further out I grab a bus. If I'm there for multiple days AND there are far-out things I want to do I could rent a car but it's almost never been necessary. Amusingly the only time I did a combination train-car trip was in Germany, where I wanted a vehicle to bounce between small towns the train didn't hit (but took the express train back from Berlin to Munich). In America it hasn't come up because the kinds of towns that don't have public transit are overwhelmingly either so small you can walk anywhere or so generic and boring that I don't get off the train except to stretch my legs. Yes, I'm sure that folks can find counterexamples. I'll poke a hole in my experiment with East Lansing, MI: A fairly standard college town with a beautiful walkable campus.....and an Amtrak station in the middle of an industrial park a fair walk from anything good. Even then, though, it's a 1.5 mile walk to the middle of campus or 2 miles to the bar district, so it's still not the end of the world.
uxp100 4y ago
The first time I saw a bald eagle was from the observation car of the empire builder along the Mississippi south of the twin cities! I hope you get the opportunity as well. OTOH I used the empire builder purely for utility for a time, and the price wasn’t bad to go about 70 miles, but several times about 10 years ago it was 16, that’s right 16, hours late for an hourish journey.
pessimizer 4y ago
> I took the California Zephyr from Denver to San Francisco (technically Emeryville) a few years ago and it was one of the best experiences of my life. Truly unforgettable. The first time I took the Zephyr and they announced we were going over Donner Lake, I thought they were kidding. A place were people resorted to eating each other out of isolation, and I'm gliding past it slicing a steak with a waiter refreshing my water. I would recommend the Empire Builder, I've never heard so many spontaneous collective oohs and aahs on a train after coming around a corner or out of a tunnel.
euroderf 4y ago
I've driven across the country, twice, and I can recommend that too. It's no prob if you have good luck with hitchhikers. I took two guys aboard outside Chicago and we rotated driving & shotgun & sleeping all the way to L.A. stopping only for food, gas, beer, and playing frisbee at the St Louis arch. Coast to coast took just about 72 hours.

thatfrenchguy 4y ago

Yup, Amtrak from Chicago to Emeryville is probably one of the most impressive routes one can take, and I feel sad for folks who will never get to experience it.

pengaru 4y ago

Agreed re: Zephyr. I took it from SAC to CHI last month, even riding coach it was a pretty good two days I spent mostly fasted, drinking black coffee while programming in the observation car. It's the perfect duration for a short fast and that eliminates a bunch of the bathroom and food needs, just caffeinated coding with great views. And in the end I've gone from CA to IL for ~$150 with a mountain bike checked to boot. Something worth noting is the dining car still wasn't available to coach travelers on my trip, only sleeper cars could access it. Vestiges of the pandemic according to the announcements. It felt a bit like skimpflation to me, but they still had the little snack bar below the observation deck available to all.

kediz 4y ago
That is amazing! Hope the view didn't distract your ability to focus since it is so gorgeous. Does the train have WiFi? Or you are just coding offline?
- mcv 4y ago
  I don't know about US trains, but many European trains offer free Wifi. I hope the ones in the US do too.
  - db48x 4y ago
    It’s not important whether the train has a WiFi router or not. What is important is what the WiFi router connects to. I don’t know what is common on European trains, but in the US they connect to whatever cell–phone network is closest. That is ok in urban areas, but in the US there are wide stretches of countryside where nobody lives. Somehow the phone companies never end up building cell towers in the middle of the deserts or on top of the Rockies. The train could easily be 50 or a 100 miles away from the nearest cell–phone network at any given time. https://www.google.com/search?q=amtrak+rockies&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=amtrak+rockies&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=amtrak+sierra+nevada https://www.google.com/search?q=amtrak+sierra+nevada https://www.google.com/search?q=amtrak+desert&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=amtrak+desert&tbm=isch
- dionidium 4y ago
  The train does have free WiFi, but my experience with it is pretty bad. You're also often remote enough that you can't use a cellular hotspot, so I wouldn't ever travel on Amtrak assuming you'll have a reliable Internet connection the whole time.
  - db48x 4y ago
    The train’s wifi is just hooked up to the same cell networks anyway. Maybe soon they will have Starlink instead.
    - kibwen 4y ago
      Starlink appears to require the dish to be stationary.
      - coder543 4y ago
        It doesn't.[0] Nothing about Starlink inherently requires the dish to be stationary. Starlink is being integrated into several airlines[1][2] over the next year, and I'm certain other airlines are exploring Starlink as an option... the existing in-flight internet options are terrible, so Starlink could make a real difference there, especially over the oceans. Proper support for moving vehicles probably benefits significantly from a dish designed for that, but airlines, trains, cruise ships, yachts... there are many markets where such a dish would be valuable, so Starlink would be pretty dumb not to be designing one that works well for that. Hawaiian Airlines certainly isn't planning to just bolt the existing dish to the outside of the plane and hope for the best. [0]: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1529089543969943553 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1529089543969943553 [1]: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/25/spacex-signs-hawaiian-airlines-for-free-starlink-wi-fi-on-flights.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/25/spacex-signs-hawaiian-airlin... [2]: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/21/spacex-first-starlink-inflight-wi-fi-deal-with-charter-airline-jsx.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/21/spacex-first-starlink-inflig...
      - db48x 4y ago
        Current subscribers are only authorized to use their dish in one specific area. However, this has more to do with capacity planning than anything else. Starlink recently announced a slightly more expensive plan that allows the user to roam from area to area without contacting customer support to reauthorize them for each new location. And as someone else pointed out already, the are definitely working on providing service to customers on boats and planes and other moving vehicles. I doubt they will ever make a dish designed to be mounted on the roof of a car, but larger multi–passenger vehicles are an obvious move. Incidentally, Starlink dishes showed up on the landing barges used by SpaceX some time ago; they use them to stream live video of the landings now.
- pengaru 4y ago
  Mostly coding offline, but I did have a cellular hotspot that managed 4G LTE for most of the trip. I didn't investigate the train's WiFi since my needs were covered. There was one state I didn't seem to have any cell service at all, Wyoming maybe? It seemed very similar to driving cross-country via i80 in terms of cellular coverage, with a few additional dead-zones where only the train goes. But in those spots the scenery is so beautiful you won't miss the cell network.
smcl 4y ago
That's a pretty incredible price, was it a special offer?
- pengaru 4y ago
  Not a special offer, just booked a month in advance before the train filled up.
  - secabeen 4y ago
    That is the lowest bucket for the Zephyr, a fare of 220 or 270 would be more common: https://www.amtraktrains.com/threads/long-distance-train-coach-sleeper-fares-buckets.77062/post-956782 https://www.amtraktrains.com/threads/long-distance-train-coa...
    - pengaru 4y ago
      It required very little effort to get the ~130 coach rate though, the biggest price knob seemed to be booking far enough in advance. What was far more challenging was getting a "trainside checked bike" ticket. The Amtrak web site just kept saying sold out for the +bike option no matter what I tried. But I had no trouble getting the same rate +bike when I went to the SAC station IRL and spoke to a ticketing agent. Apparently my problem was ending the trip at NPV instead of CHI, because NPV can't handle checked bikes. The web site is awful WRT +bike tickets. Maybe this will prove helpful for anyone reading wanting to go ride some distant trails via Amtrak.
      - secabeen 4y ago
        Yeah, if you're flexible on time, far enough out, and willing to ride coach, it's definitely doable. Summer is also peak season (more sunlight); avoiding June-August helps too. Amtrak's system is terrible when something you want is not available, it usually reports "Sold Out" or "No Train Service" when the actual issue is that there is no train that day, or no facility for checked luggage, as you describe.
db48x 4y ago
It’s definitely skimpflation (great word, btw). They eliminated traditional dining service entirely on several other routes. Instead of sitting at a table with other passengers having a nice conversation while waiters take orders and serve meals, everyone now gathers quietly in the dining car waiting for a single waiter to prepare tv–dinners and shout out room numbers.
- CaliforniaKarl 4y ago
  Per https://www.amtrak.com/onboard/meals-dining/dining-car.html https://www.amtrak.com/onboard/meals-dining/dining-car.html, it looks like traditional dining is available west of Chicago/San Antonio.
  - db48x 4y ago
    Yep. I was super disappointed the last time I went cross–country. The service was so bad that I haven’t bothered since then.
kibwen 4y ago
Note that while the Zephyr between CA and Denver is a breathtaking journey, the span from Denver to Chicago is nothing but an infinite plane of corn punctuated by a crossing of the Mississippi. If you're just in it for sightseeing, you can skip half the trip.
- splonk 4y ago
  For some of us taking a train across the Mississippi was part of the point of the journey, but yes, the scenery is considerably better from SF/Emeryville to Denver.

fatnoah 4y ago

I've flown across the country many times, but have only done it on the train once. I ended up doing a loop going from Boston to Washington DC to Chicago to Sacramento to Los Angeles to San Antonio to Chicago and finally to Boston. The whole trip took 10 days, with 7 nights on the train and 3 off the train. In the roughly 8,800 miles of that trip, it was amazing to see so much of the country that I'd only flown over. Time also seemed to stand still, as I really lost all sense of place and time. It was the most relaxed I've ever been in my live. I agree that if anyone was to do just one overnight train trip in the US, they should do Chicago and/or Denver to Emeryville. In fact, that was the leg that seemed to have have the most tourists, vs. the route across Texas which was more people going from point A to B that didn't want to spend 12 hours on a bus. One bonus of the trip was having a glass of wine and some cheese with Gene Shalit on the final leg. Apparently he was a regular and knew many of the station and train staff by name.

dionidium 4y ago
> I agree that if anyone was to do just one overnight train trip in the US, they should do Chicago and/or Denver to Emeryville. The other routes I've done are Charleston -> Savannah, Fort Worth -> Austin, Boston -> Chicago -> St. Louis, Boston -> Portland, St. Louis -> KC, and many trips to every stop on the Northeast Corridor. They were each interesting in their own way, but I just like trains and for a more general audience I'd say the Zephyr is really on a totally different level.
pessimizer 4y ago
> I agree that if anyone was to do just one overnight train trip in the US, they should do Chicago and/or Denver to Emeryville. Also (from experience) you might be able to get your job to pay for it if you work in Chicago or Denver and are attending an SF area conference. Roomette instead of coach is the way to go if possible.

duxup 4y ago

Reminds me a little of the experience described in song “America” by Simon & Garfunkel. Although I think they’re on the bus, but much the same experience.

javajosh 4y ago

Another good reason is if you find yourself on a no-fly list, without trial or recourse.

arrrg 4y ago

But why then not pick the car? The US are mind-bogglingly car-centric. If you want to explore them, chances are you need a car even if you then want to hike, bike or do whatever. On our road trip from Miami to Seattle (via New Orleans, Los Angeles) the only National Park that wasn’t offensively car centric was Carlsbad Caverns, even though they did want to blow a hole in the mountain in the 1930s to change that. (Maybe Shark Valley in the Everglades, too. Though in both cases you need a car to get to the entrance.) I get the remote wilderness (no matter how touristically attractive) needs cars. It‘s just that if you take the train you can’t really get there. Unless you get out and rent a car all the time. I certainly didn’t enjoy any of the cities. They were all car-oppressed hellholes that aren’t much fun to be in.

Arainach 4y ago
Road trips are long and require focus. I've done plenty of long US road trips: Chicago to Seattle, Chicago to to East Coast, Michigan to Florida, Seattle to southern California, a loop of the southwest starting and ending in Vegas, etc. I've done road trips throughout my life (Seattle to Socal was less than a year ago) and do smaller (~3hr 1 way) ones on a regular basis (Seattle to Portland or Vancouver). I've also taken trains in the US and in other countries and it's a different experience. Having to focus on the road for more than an hour at a time wears you down. If you have a car full of people such that you can rotate drivers, it's bearable but that just means sharing the load. In comparison, in a train I can simply relax and enjoy the sights and the trip. If there's a beautiful mountain I can focus on it without worrying about a car or animal in front of me. If I want to eat or drink or use the restroom I do without having to wait miles to find somewhere to pull over. If I want to read or use my laptop or have a beverage (even alcohol if I want), it's fine. I've driven Seattle to Portland dozens of times. I've also taken the train several times. When I drive, I arrive in PDX tired. When I get off the train I am invigorated and ready to start my day (even though when I've done it I usually had to get up at 4 to catch a 5:30AM train, times which usually don't exist for me and should seemingly leave me tired) As far as exploring cities: while infrastructure in the US is bad, there is a strong correlation between cities worth exploring and some form of bus/bike/scooter rental. Train stations are also usually centrally located. If I want to explore I go walking and there's plenty to do within a few miles of the station. If it's further out I grab a bus. If I'm there for multiple days AND there are far-out things I want to do I could rent a car but it's almost never been necessary. Amusingly the only time I did a combination train-car trip was in Germany, where I wanted a vehicle to bounce between small towns the train didn't hit (but took the express train back from Berlin to Munich). In America it hasn't come up because the kinds of towns that don't have public transit are overwhelmingly either so small you can walk anywhere or so generic and boring that I don't get off the train except to stretch my legs. Yes, I'm sure that folks can find counterexamples. I'll poke a hole in my experiment with East Lansing, MI: A fairly standard college town with a beautiful walkable campus.....and an Amtrak station in the middle of an industrial park a fair walk from anything good. Even then, though, it's a 1.5 mile walk to the middle of campus or 2 miles to the bar district, so it's still not the end of the world.

uxp100 4y ago

The first time I saw a bald eagle was from the observation car of the empire builder along the Mississippi south of the twin cities! I hope you get the opportunity as well. OTOH I used the empire builder purely for utility for a time, and the price wasn’t bad to go about 70 miles, but several times about 10 years ago it was 16, that’s right 16, hours late for an hourish journey.

pessimizer 4y ago

> I took the California Zephyr from Denver to San Francisco (technically Emeryville) a few years ago and it was one of the best experiences of my life. Truly unforgettable. The first time I took the Zephyr and they announced we were going over Donner Lake, I thought they were kidding. A place were people resorted to eating each other out of isolation, and I'm gliding past it slicing a steak with a waiter refreshing my water. I would recommend the Empire Builder, I've never heard so many spontaneous collective oohs and aahs on a train after coming around a corner or out of a tunnel.

euroderf 4y ago

I've driven across the country, twice, and I can recommend that too. It's no prob if you have good luck with hitchhikers. I took two guys aboard outside Chicago and we rotated driving & shotgun & sleeping all the way to L.A. stopping only for food, gas, beer, and playing frisbee at the St Louis arch. Coast to coast took just about 72 hours.