Thursday morning we got up, showered and dressed, and said goodbye to this room:
And hello to this one:
We went from this big, luxurious bathroom (only halfway pictured):
To this tiny vanity, where we could sit on the couch to brush our teeth:
I had to stand out in the hallway to take the picture below because I couldn't get back far enough!
With all of our luggage packed in, opening the door to the toilet/shower combo is a bit of a challenge. The shower is almost right over the toilet. There is actually a sign that says it might be easier to shower while sitting down. I guess that's good for multi-taskers. Thankfully there are bigger showers right downstairs that I think we will use!
There are two main sleeper cars on our train, and we're on the second level of one of them. We are near the front of the train and just two away from the dining car. The lounge car and coach seats are on the opposite end of the train so we have very little traffic outside our room. It's actually very quiet and peaceful in our room! Here is Matt standing in the hallway outside our door. Each room has a sliding door with window and a curtain that can be pulled closed.
This is the hallway through the middle of the other half of our car. Tiny "roomettes" are on each side.
Each car is labeled so you know what you're entering in to!
It's a little shaky crossing between cars. The picture below is of me standing between two different are - that bright light in the middle is the ground/track underneath!
Here is a picture of the dining car. The middle section behind those brown half walls is the wait staff's area, and then there are more booths in the other side.
Here is the viewing lounge car. We didn't get a chance to sit in it yesterday because it was full! It's pretty noisy in there.
So yesterday we boarded the train right outside of San Fransisco in Emeryville. We traveled through California - Sacramento and Lake Tahoe being the biggest towns - then on to Nevada where we stopped in Reno. After Reno was Winnemucca and then the last town before we turned out our lights for the night was Elko. We hit Salt Lake City, Utah around 3am. I definitely woke up when the train stopped but I couldn't pull myself awake enough to take a picture!
Here are some pictures from the day.
Here comes our new Home Sweet Home!
I kept laughing because I could see myself in the mirror sitting next to Matt, so I decided to take a picture of us "sitting together."
The landscape as we left the San Fran area.
Sacramento station!
Then we finally started getting to some good scenery!
Reno was nicer than I expected.
Can you believe this rock wall up the outside of this building?! It goes all the way to the roof. Not sure I could do that.
Nice view from the street.
That's me in the L of Believe! :)
After dinner we came back to our beds being turned down. The couch in our room turns into a full (ish) sized bed and a twin bed folds down from the top. It was really hard to get a picture of!
We pulled our door shut for the evening but at some point it opened back up (we hadn't locked it) so it was weird this morning to realize our door had been open all night.
Interesting tidbit of the day: Since we have a sleeping car, we get three meals a day! Breakfast and lunch are first come, first served and dinner is by reservation. Because of limited tables, it's communal seating. We had lunch with two girls in dental school in Ohio. They were on their return trip home so they were able to tell us a lot about the train since they'd just made the trip a few days earlier. For dinner we dined with a father and son duo. The son is in his residency for medical school and the dad is an engineering professor at Iowa State. They were pretty smart guys. The food is pretty good, definitely better than airplane food. We both had burgers for lunch and for dinner, I had lasagna and Matt had chicken. Dessert is always included! The chocolate torte has been fantastic and pairs nicely with the Haagen Dazs ice cream. :)