Aboard the California Zephyr, traveling on hand-built railroads dating back to 1949 from California to Illinois, a fifty-three-hour view of the country is an enchanting ride.
On June 24th, 2024, the California Zephyr left the Amtrak Emeryville station at 9:10 am. The train was full. Voices filled the small space. Echos of destinations and departures and friendly greetings were comforting in the early morning.
This would be my third trip on the California Zephyr, but my first summertime trip. Having usually departed from Chicago in the winter, I was curious what the country would look like in the summer.
Where You’ll Live for Fifty-Three Hours on Amtrak
The Amtrak is a small and cozy ride. With two stories, coach riders sit in two-by-two seating. Coach seats recline, and have tray tables, reading lights, and electric outlets.
Walking a few cars up, you’ll find the viewer car, with seats facing wide, open windows. In the same car is the panorama car, which contains diner-like booths.
The cafe car and its stereotypical enthusiastic instructor create the perfect environment for coffee, breakfast sandwiches, sweets, and cup o’ noodles.
The diner car is located next to the panorama and emanates the vibe of an American diner clashing with a fine dining experience.
Detachment from Reality
Put down the phone. As Billy Joel says, “Slow down, you crazy child.”
The Amtrak is a detachment from our normal lives. In a world filled with media, work, and obligations, a one-way train with little cell service offers a uniquely separate world. It’s time to open your eyes to the far mountains, learn something about the stranger sitting next to you, sleep in a city full of salt lakes, and wake up in a valley of Tuscany-looking orchards.
Back in December, I overheard someone who was recording the entire trip on a GoPro camera speaking to an employee. He said that he takes the Amtrak to “exist in endless scenery.”
The employee laughed. “I didn’t understand it. My first tip, oh boy. I got it right away.”
There is something rare and special about every trip, filled with its own distinct characters and memories. Reflecting on my Amtrak journeys, I feel a powerful nostalgia for them.
Nostalgia
Seeing the states between California and Illinois is meditative in its Americana charm. The slowness of the moving train through isolated mountains and valleys is a sentimental pastime. It’s in the lonely spirit of empty towns. In the solitary cattle roaming the mountains. The comfortable silence between two strangers. The out-of-style decor. There are endless hours in this gigantic painting of nature all around you. As I once overheard someone say, “The big city becomes nothing.”
English Teachers
Everyone who boards the Amtrak comes as they are. I remember in the winter of 2022, I was sitting in the diner’s car drinking peppermint tea and watching the Midwest roll by. The meadows were beautiful, with the sun setting over dark soil and weeds.
I was reading when, suddenly, a gray-haired man and his wife sat down in the booth next to mine. He asked about my studies, and I mentioned that I was majoring in English. Their faces brightened as they shared a joyful look with each other. It was a sweet, intimate moment, filled with a sense of privacy.
They were English teachers who traveled the world teaching. Naturally, I wanted to know where they loved teaching the most. The woman’s eyes sparkled as she looked into the distance, where dead crops and leafless trees stood bathed in the golden light of the sun. After a moment, she said slowly, “Jamaica.” I followed her gaze to the open fields, tasting honey in my tea and imagining the scent of sweet corn in the air. She continued, “It was like you could feel the heartbeat of the land…like there was a song that never stopped playing.”
The Poet
On that same day, sitting in a booth near the back of the Panorama car, I was approached by a nice kid with several books in his hands. It was getting dark: Dusk settled outside over an empty town, and trees cast shadows in vacant lots and fields in the moonlight. At night, you can see the Christmas lights on small homes between the trees.
The boy was a poet. We talked about book recommendations, poets dear to him, and carrot cake. About literature and beautiful prose. We talked about the quaint little town we were in, with brick libraries, rotting signs, and little red-nosed Rudolphs in front yards, and we both pinned it on our maps. Eventually, he grew serious and, after a brief pause, asked me if I was writing. “Always,” I said. “Now?” he asked. I nodded. “Are you?”
In the low-lit train car, empty beside a group of three playing a quiet game of slap jacks, he read me his travel poem. It was a long mediation, a reflection on this one-way train west. I remember one line from the poem. A poet gets off at every stop on a train. He got off in Sacramento. I continued getting off at every stop after him.
Kathy
On my most recent trip, I met Kathy. Kathy is a beautiful woman, with blue eyes and a sweet smile. We sat together and she made me a turkey sandwich. She shared fruits chocolate, and carrots from her neighbor’s garden. We talked about everything. Love, mosaics, writing, Daoism, grief, and pretty places.
At one point, she asked me: “Have you ever seen fireflies?” I told her I haven’t. She had. She said, “The first time I saw them, I just thought, how can I get these where I live, in my little California town?”
Kathy shared that the only other time she took a train was when she was my age, and an older woman sat with her and gave her food. That same day I arrived back home, and I saw a firefly. Then another. I hope she finds this.
The Mountains, The Snow, The River, Elves: Scenery
I spend most of my trips with the tip of my nose on the window, watching the trees. The Colorado River, hidden between the mountains, is brown in the summertime and dark blue in the winter.
One winter, a young couple in the booth in front of me explained that they were keeping an eye out for an elf. They had seen one, on the same trip many years ago. I searched too. I kept thinking I saw something peeking between the trees or strange footprints in perfectly soft snow.
That same winter, in the viewer cart, a girl around my age in Christmas pajamas asked to sit with me. She giggled at the scenery. We watched the land grow denser with trees and wetter with snow. We saw the country’s dried fields of hay and grass shift into trees planted in dark soil.
Wedged between mountains full of Bristlecone pines, Colorado blue spruces, Douglas-firs, and Engelmann spruce trees growing buried in snow, Colorado is breathtaking.
In the summertime, the journey takes on a completely different charm. The porches in the little towns that we pass are dreamy and peaceful. Open fields and secluded wetlands nestled between dry mountains create a serene landscape. Someone’s always saying, you wouldn’t see any of this driving. The trees are a rich green, twisting up into the hills and valleys. The sun is laid out over everything, brightening the greenery. Summer evenings in the mountains are characterized by a red horizon over wild animals, providing a tranquil warmth.
Nostalgia between Illinois and California on the Amtrak
On board, everything feels romantic. The sunlight pours through the trees at sunrise in Nebraska. The cozy, dimly lit train passes on, growing sleepy at night. The cafe conductor requests you to pay him a visit and offers drip coffee and warm sandwiches. The dreaminess of this state is what brings people back to Amtrak. People don’t take it to get to where they are going. The Amtrak is for the time in between, on the railroad through the midwest.
