After our brief visit to Mom, it was time to head home – basically a backtrack of the same route. Although we didn’t have another scheduled 9 hour layover in Sacramento, with the delays, it was pretty close to the same 44 hours it took us to get there.

At one of the “fresh air” breaks I wandered up to the front of the train. Looks like this poor engine has seen a few hazards on the tracks! Not much of a cow catcher on the front.

We found a fun coffee shop a few blocks away from the Sacramento station. The Sacramento station was nice in that if you paid for a sleeper room you could sit on couches in a “lounge” in the waiting area and they provided snacks and drinks.

Beautiful sunset heading through Nevada.

All in all I think the trip was a success. Joel rated it a 5/10 because he could never seem to get comfortable – long legs and achy knees seem to be the theme on any kind of extended trip for him now. But it was nice that we could leave the room and walk up to the observation car to stretch our legs. I would give it an 8/10. It was so much more relaxing and carefree than driving or flying and as long as you weren’t in any type of hurry it is a great way to travel. I ended up with a bit of motion sickness after the last part of the trip, which was odd because on the two legs up to Seattle, I was fine. I didn’t like the dining situation but understood that they were completely full for the holiday. Maybe if we took a trip in the “off” season we wouldn’t be forced to dine with strangers. Joel has a couple of stamp shows in Denver and San Francisco he wants to go to – maybe another train trip?