Just the journey to Chicago deserves a blog entry in its own right. What an experience! 52 hours, 7 states, 3 timezones and a whole load of spectacular scenery.

I caught the California Zephyr despite a packed San Francisco ferry building stop to take us to Emeryville. And I even had time in Emeryville to stock up on some good snack food and three litres of boxed white wine for the journey. This turned out to be a very good move!

The first day took us out of California and across Nevada. In Reno I stepped off for some air and helped a girl with her bags onto the train while she waited for her boyfriend. Boyfriend arrives, I say hello, return to the observation/lounge car and think nothing more of it. Apparently that was enough to send the girlfriend into a rage to not talk to her boyfriend anymore, me being suspiciously questioned by said boyfriend as to what I said, and train guards preventing him from going to talk to her on harassment grounds. She's now not going to Omaha with him as they had originally planned. I on the other hand have no idea what's going on, so I've offered the boyfriend wine and told him to chill until it blows over. It turns out he may have been a bit jealous of my bag carrying and conversational skills...

During all this I've been alternating between my recliner seat and the lounge car to enjoy the view and chat with people. Met one girl who has done a photography course and had a load of old analogue equipment with her, so we talked for a bit. All the time, the snow-capped mountains and lakes raced away and the scene changed to flatter land overnight. I slept comfortably with my travel pillow in my big recliner seat. Who needs a sleeper car?

I awoke to the sight of the plains of Utah in the morning and I watched the plains become canyons as I had breakfast in the restaurant car with a guy called Davis. I then spent almost the whole day sat in the lounge car watching the utter beauty of the Colorado River unfold. A girl called Maggie came and sat next to me and she was on her way to Steamboat Springs to greet her boyfriend who has been travelling for a while. We shared life stories and she told me about the Colorado River and the fact that she works on it doing watersports every summer! Nice job. We enjoyed a few glasses of wine and eventually crossed the great continental divide under the huge Moffat Tunnel. Maggie left at Denver and I enjoyed the sunset before heading back to my seat to sleep.

On the third day I woke up and I was actually sat next to someone. I vaguely remember someone getting on at Omaha. Her name was Rosemary and she was heading back to school, so I spent the day chatting with her and naturally drinking some wine. By this point I was probably not nice to be sat with, considering I'd spent two days on the train and my deodorant was in my checked baggage. Oops. The amazing scenery had pretty much finished so it was a case of waiting until Chicago. We got there at 3pm.

Yesterday I'd rung the Getaway Hostel to try to book a bed and they were full. Chicago was FREEZING when I got in, so I parked myself in a cafe and used the wifi to find somewhere to stay. I rang everywhere and they were all full! I was considering getting on another train but I rang Getaway again on the off chance and they had a dorm bed for three days! I snapped it up and enjoyed the pub crawl they had that night. Chicago had begun!