Train Ride

At 4:45am on Tuesday we departed from Ann Arbor, dad drove, while I sat in the back corner of the van, on a small rectangular area on the floor surrounded by boxes. Sitting backwards, I watched home recede, and knew I would miss Michigan at least a little, despite the weather.

An hour later we were at the Toledo train station, buying luggage insurance as we warily handed over our bike boxes to be checked on the train, hoping they arrive intact. Then it was a four hour nap to Chicago Union Station. In the Windy City we had a four-hour layover which we spent ambling from restaurant to bookstore to any random place to keep out of the cold. At two o'clock we boarded again, and I started my watch chronograph as the train's wheels turned out of the station. I took another nap, read a short story by Tolstoy, dinner, nap, shared a beer with my bros. Lincoln, NE my chronograph read 10 hours, and I tried to sleep, which is easier than on a plane; the train seats tilt back pretty far with lots of leg room, but still it's difficult. Sooner or later I drift from ethereal thoughts to sleep, waking much through the night. I felt pretty refreshed in the morning though. We had 45 minutes in Denver, so we quickly walked and got a hot breakfast, enjoying the warmer weather and beautiful morning above the Denver skyline. 20 hours 37 minutes, Granby, CO, right next to the YMCA of the Rockies where I spent last summer working.

The hours crept by. Our activities are eat, sleep, and read, so I mix and match for variety: sleep when I'm bored, eat when I'm restless. Later, the fading sun swept the horizon in pink and yellow and reminded me of two days earlier running on the dirt roads near home and watching the Michigan sunset, and it occurred to me what we were: a snake of captive fish, mostly unmoving, but sometimes swimming back and forth in the sterile air. But the thought is not an unhappy one, since it carries hope and possibility. Since I could run and enjoy the sunset back home, I can do it here too. This new thinking is comfort to the stark impossibility I've watched slide past the windows for the last few hours - the impossibility of exploring every nook and cranny, climbing every craggy slope, rocketing down each valley like I want to. The slant dimness revealed less and less of the landscape: endless rusty crowned plateaus, crumbling eonic layers of scree, miles of rolling hills like a bunched up sheet with pebbles poured over it, yet the possibilities of doing, of achieving, were actually opened up. The burn to achieve just one orange highlighted peak is more powerful than the petrifying immensity of thousands of them that the view from our 35-40 mph clip affords. Our world is one small hill at a time.

Salt Lake City, UT, 33.5 hours. Reno, NV, 43 hours 5 minutes and another night of tossing and turning, getting up to put on long johns and my coat for the cold of the coach car. Finally, 5:40pm on Thursday, 53.5 hours later, we arrive at Emeryville, CA, after riding the entire length of the California Zephyr route and passing through two time zones. We boarded a half-hour bus that stopped at the famous Fisherman's Wharf of San Francisco, our final destination. Whew, it feels great to be here. We assembled our bikes right on the touristy pedestrian boulevard, while walkers and bikers watch us unload our boxes, luggage, and bikes until they are strewn across the pavement. After an hour of attaching wheels and handlebars, inflating tires, adjusting seats and throwing our gear in panniers or trailer, we took a wonderful evening ride to our hotel, and walked our bikes right into the elevator, first class. Man, it felt great to lay out on a bed. We walked the wharf, eyeing the fresh-caught lobster and smelling all the other fishes, but settled on a carry-out pizza in our room. We all slept on the bed like three peas in a pod.

Next day, we took a six-hour walking tour of SF, enjoyed the pastel colors and embellished architecture, and checked out Haight-Ashbury, the center of the hippie movement in the sixties. At night, we shopped for groceries, divided up the group gear, and repacked everything properly for departure the next day. The weather is gorgeous.