Friday, September 7, 2007

Scenic train trip to Denver, Colorado

The trip was AWESOME!

I didn't get into too much detail here. Pictures speak louder than words...

Our trip took place over the the Labour long weekend, Saturday 1 September to Monday 3 September. It was six of us --- me, Anna, Ben, Carlos, Brendan, and Tina.

On Saturday at 4.30 in the morning we set out to Oakland (close to SF), where the train station is, in a rental car. The train was leaving at 7.10, but we decided to have an extra hour just in case (it's around 1 hour drive from where we live).

We arrived but the garage gate was locked -- the still grid was down, and we wondered how we would drop off the car. There was a guy in the same situation there already and he already called up security. They came shortly and opened the gate for us. The train station was only a few meters away so it was no hassle to walk over there.

The train trip itself was great. We traveled in a sleeping car with two person cabins, which was great! There was a dining carriage, where we had food three times a day (included in the price too ;)). Past the dining carriage there was also a scenic carriage with non-tinted windows which were on the roof also. Basically we didn't move that much, ate a lot of American food (I think there is a cheesecake shot in the photos), and slept (but not that well, at least on my part).

We arrived into Denver around 21.30. Walked a couple of miles to our motel and decided to go out to the downtown (city center) for beer in a bar. It wasn't too bad, but I was pretty tired and was glad to return to the motel room. Ben and Carlos stayed to check out another club and came back an hour later.

The next day we walked around and rode around on Denver's free mall bus (no cars are allowed in the very heart of the centre). There was some kind of food festival going on. So we checked it out. I tried some deep fried alligator meet, but it tasted like chicken to me. I was a bit disappointed with it, to be honest :( Basically the rest, just have a look at the photos. The weather was great, so we lucked out on that front for sure---both on the train and in Denver.

Most places, such as museums were closed (it was a Monday and a holiday after all).

One more thing worth mentioning is that on the way back in from the plane we saw a huge fire, or a lot of smoke to be more precise. The whole bay area (SF to SJ) was suffering from the smoke particles for over a week later. Apparently 100s of acres of land burnt somewhere a few 10s of miles south of my work. In the mornings I could see that everything was blue and you could smell it... not that great for your lungs I would think. When I was leaving work on one of the days the sun was out, but it was red-brown... that's how thick the atmosphere was... It's all fine now though. Here is the story in the local news.