I’d like to think that at any point in its 53-hour odyssey, the California Zephyr train, which shoots westbound from Chicago, Illinois to Emeryville, California, will consist of the most diverse sample of Americans – ever. Think about it: with 34 stops, cutting through the heart of America, passengers coming and going at any point throughout the day or night, it must be, right? No airplane or car is going to bring a Chicagoan to Osceola, Iowa to pick up another passenger, then to Granby, Colorado, then to Winnemucca, Nevada… This is the very junction where the people of America from all walks of life…… converge.

I don’t know what I expected. It’s very possible I had no expectations coming in (to be honest, I had plenty to think about leading up to this trip – none of which included the potential demographics aboard this train). This experience was but a blank canvas ready for some paint. And undoubtedly it was an unforgettable, vibrant, techni-colored journey – my lonesome, introverted ass cherished every one of those 53 hours.

Full disclosure: I’m a citizen of the American coast. Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area – where I now live and work. I’ve only ever lived in one other place in my life, and that’s New York City – another “coastal” city. My bubble is très small; therefore, my depiction and observations on this train ride are just that – observations. Of a 28-year-old-Asian-American-coastally-raised-female.

Through this very lens, here is my adventure, including the characters I met onboard the California Zephyr Amtrak Train Number 5. ALL ABOARD!

——————

I sprinted through Chicago Union Station, backpack bouncing with each step, luggage in tow. Where the f*ck is this damn Amtrak gate?!?! 1:48PM. Our train was set to depart at 2PM, doors closing at 1:55,  and I wasn’t even close to any sort of Amtrak signage.

I frantically scrolled through every one of my emails from Amtrak trying to find some semblance of a gate number. Why aren’t there any employees in this damn station for me to ask?! I rounded a corner onto the North Concourse of the station – finally a man in uniform. 1:53PM.

Panicked and breathless, I asked the man, who by the way took eons to finish answering a girl’s previous question: “Excuse me – where is the gate for the California Zephyr???”

“Just go straight ahead, turn left and when you reach the restrooms turn right and you’ll arri—“ “OKTHXBYE!!!!” 1:54PM.

Ever so Fast and Furious, I drifted into each turn. Finally I saw a long line that could only lead to the gate of Train 5. The line was about 30 people long.

WHAT THE HELL, MAN?! THEY HAVEN’T EVEN STARTED LETTING PEOPLE IN YET. My near-cardiac-arrest was all for naught.

1:55PM.

Resigned, I joined the back of the line. Almost immediately, they started letting people in. Juuuust great. Shaved off 5 years of my lifespan for this.

We all started walking down the long expanse of the train; this train fit 300 passengers – 200 in coach, 100 in the sleepers.

“Sleeper cars…. Alllll the way down, keeeeep walkin’…” the workers directed.

Yes, forgive my bougie ass, but I wasn’t going to brave a 53-hour journey without the ability to lay flat and actually fall asleep outside the watchful eye of others. Plus, I can’t possibly be made responsible for feeding myself (*scoff* god no), so I’d like the train personnel to do that, too. Booking a sleeper car meant all my meals were included and/or could be delivered to my room. I’m a real Princess & the Pea, you see.

Still panting from my previous false alarm, I lugged my suitcase up Car 533 to room #4, window facing north. Ahhh, home sweet home.

Hm, it’s smaller than I thought it would be… but I LOVE IT. I actually did. Any larger and I wouldn’t have known what to do with the space. I couldn’t believe, though, that these rooms were meant to fit two. For one decent sized human being, it was fine; for two? Maneuvering around would’ve been like fitting TWO bratwursts into ONE casing. Fuhgettaboutittttt.

I sat down in my seat. Deeeeeeep breath. I made it. I’m going home. Slowly, but surely, I’m going home.

(PLOT TWISTTTT: I was not going home for a while. For 1.5 hours, to be exact, we all sat, waiting for our train to start moving.)

“Sorry, ladies and gentleman. We are experiencing mechanical issues on one of the sleeper cars – we must get this fixed before we can start our journey.” I later find out the “malfunctioned car” was none other than my own. Woot I’m cursed.

[45 mins later, everything goes dark and silent.]

“Whoops, looks like all the electricity and air circulation has gone out of our train. We’ll fix that ASAP before we get going.” *me staring out deadpan into the darkness* Good mofuggin gawd y’all I’m actually cursed.

For a transportation service that was supposed to be quite prompt, I’m not impressed. Not to mention – weren’t there talks about a partial government shutdown tomorrow??? Dear god if this happened, would the Amtrak just…stop… and its passengers left to fend for ourselves, hunger-games-style?! These were my thoughts as I sat – unmoving and miserable – in the darkness of the Amtrak station tunnel.

Finally, at about 3:30PM, the train suddenly lurched forward. Never has my heart skipped a beat not for a man or food – but correct, the train’s forward progress nearly moved me to tears.

Our car attendant’s name was Alfredo – a wonderful man – who kept me very well stocked with water bottles (I asked for 2 bottles extra every couple of hours – fairly certain an Amtrak record), made my bed at night, and delivered food right to my door. My room was in the prime-est of locations on our car: close enough to the bathroom that I only had to walk 4 steps to get there – but far enough so that I didn’t have to hear the heinous sound of flushing. And just diagonal to the great man himself, Alfredo. #blessed

The gorgeous…. industrial warehouses and tractor trailers in the outskirts of Chicago didn’t particularly tickle my fancy (apologies if it does yours), and so for the next couple of hours I lounged in my room reading a war novel called City of Thieves.

Upon dinnertime, they made an announcement to head to the dining car, and ever the obedient child, I followed orders. The Amtrak dinner service practices community seating, so being a single party, I was always placed with other traveling folk.

As I checked Google Maps, our train trekking through the town of Ottumwa, Iowa – I couldn’t help but wonder… “what proportion of passengers on this train are fans of our current President?” (I mean…. wouldn’t you wonder the same?) Just because, by virtue of having lived in the two BLUE-ASS STATES OF CALIFORNIA AND NEW YORK, I live in an echo chamber of liberality, and don’t have much exposure to the “other side“ of the house.

The moment I sat down at the dinner table, I look at the lovely elderly couple across from me and an equally old woman next to me and exclaim “Hi! How’s it going?”

The couple on the other side jovially respond “great”, and then the woman next to me promptly goes, “OOOoOh NOT GOOD AT ALL. I HAD TO ATTEND THE FUNERAL OF MY AUNT THIS WEEK AND THEN RIGHT AFTER WENT TO MY NEPHEW’S GRADUATION AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MARLYAND. IT’S BEEN SUCH A LONG WEEK. OoOoh DEAR.” All the while this woman (can I mention she’s rocking the fiercest mullet I’d ever laid eyes on) is unscrewing the cap to the bottle of wine she ordered and pours herself a “healthy” glass and chugs the entire thing in one go.

O_O <— me staring straight ahead as she’s doing all of this, nodding and softly saying “I’m so sorry” under my breath, repeatedly, as the story of her roller-coaster-of-a-week continues to unfold.

The waiter comes by and takes our orders and he asks her “what would you like to order, dear?” She goes “THE MOST EXPENSIVE THING ON HERE, THE CRAB CAKE AND STEAK, GIVE IT ALL TO ME.” She pours more wine for herself. She chugs about half the glass.

Somehow throughout this meal, I’m able to squeeze in some conversation with the soft-spoken couple across from us. “Where are you from?” I ask. “Paradise, Indiana!” “Oh, ‘Paradise’, that’s a cool name.” “OOH I WENT TO INDIANA ONCE…” says the clearly intoxicated woman next to me. And yep, down the toilet went my opportunity to learn more about Paradise, Indiana…..

The entire time I’m just so incredibly amused by this woman’s behavior – as I’m sure our other guests were as well – and the fact that she hasn’t spilled a single drop of her wine (such deftness!) Yep, I thought, would definitely meet some “interesting folk” up in the middle of America. I shoveled steak in my mouth with gusto. Not out of stress, but merely out of anticipation of what she’d do or say next. It was like a Goosebumps-Choose-Your-Own-Adventure storyline. Surely, this woman kept me on my toes.

As we’re eating our dessert, I don’t know how we got there, but we started talking about non-fiction books. The woman mentions that she’s reading Michelle Obama’s book, Becoming. “LOOOOVE MICHELLE OBAMA. SHE’S FABULOUS. OH AND DID YOU HEAR ABOUT RUTH BADER GINSBERG AND HER LUNG CANCER? HOW AWFUL. BUT YEAH THE OBAMAS ARE SO GREAT. REALLY MISS THEM.”

Just then, I visibly saw the couple across from us – the ones from Paradise, Indiana – tense up. They clearly did not want to go down this path of discussion.

And that’s when it dawned on me. Holy moly – why did I just assume political affiliation purely based on behavior? It’s become clear that in my very own echo chamber, we have caricaturized “the other side” without reason, when really we are all just people living out our lives. They are no different than us. So here I was – co-mingling with the rest of America – plainly unable to tell red from blue.

Though perhaps obvious to others, I definitely had an aha! moment during that dinner. Utterly mind-blown – I excused myself and walked back to my room.

….  That night, back to City of Thieves I went, as the train whizzed through the state of Nebraska in pure darkness.

(Side note: Shoutout to the tall guy in the glasses I repeatedly ran into coming out of the bathroom. Nothing more romantic than synced pee cycles, amiright?)

Oh yes, we had another set of power outage/mechanical issues at like 4am that night/morning. Some real “Murder on the Orient Express” shit. The train was completely dead for like 30 minutes. Anything could’ve happened and we would’ve been powerless to do anything. Like I said, curséd is my soul.

But clearly, not so cursed since I didn’t die.

The next morning I ate breakfast with a lovely family of three: a mother (her hair was purple) and two daughters from Chicago on their way to Denver. One daughter (her hair was pink) was in middle school, the other (her hair was blue) in high school. The one in high school was a proud vegetarian.

“I love animals more than I love tasting animals,” she exclaimed.

*sigh* Damn girl, wish I had that kinda willpower nowadays.

After breakfast, I walked over to the Observation Car – smack dab in the middle of the train – where the ceilings were partially windows, allowing for optimal viewing.

I sat down in a single chair that ever-so-slightly faced a bench for two. Two boys, one about eight years old, one about fifteen. They both had hair longer than mine, tied into a pony tail. The older one says something to his younger brother, gets up and leaves. That leaves me and the eight year old.

“So…. where are you from?” I ask.

The little boy, originally staring outside, immediately side-glances at me uncomfortably, clearly skirting eye contact. The entire gamut of human emotion runs across this boy’s face. Perhaps because his parents told him not to speak to strangers, perhaps because I’m a woman, perhaps because I’m Asian – WHO THE HELL KNOWS. He is visibly uncomfortable and I’m just lovin’ it.

” uh….. Tonganoxie, Kansas.”

“….. wat.”

“TONG-A-NOXIE, KANSAS.”

I try to repeat it back, but I clearly get it so… SO wrong. He says it again, suddenly having mustered infinite courage and audacity.

“TOOOONG-A-NOXEEEEEEEEE KAAANSASSSSS.”

“Oh, Tonganoxie. That’s cool.”

……………

……………

/end scene.

(But seriously, I don’t remember the rest of what I said to him; was far too ashamed having been owned in the face by an 8-year-old.)

For your and my edification, though, I looked it up on Google: Tonganoxie is a town in northeast Kansas with a population of about 5,300. Learn sumthin’ new everyday. Take that to your next trivia night. You’re welcome.

Again, all a blur from the overwhelming shame, I somehow someway end up moving to another single chair within the Observation Car. Sitting there, admiring the views, I start chatting with a lovely middle-aged married couple – the wife Japanese, the husband Latino. We end up discovering that the wife and I both went to Columbia, and that we both attended the Commencement Ceremony in 2012: me for undergrad, her for her Masters. “It was a hot, hot day – I remember,” she said. Her husband nods in agreement.

… I don’t remember much from that day, to be honest. Just that engineering students got inflatable hammers and were pegging each other on the head throughout the entire ceremony. College grads, y’allllll.

Amidst conversation with this couple, I see a little blonde head creep into my peripheral vision. My eye glances to the right ever so slightly… “the f*ck is that…”

……..

……..

A little boy with the blondest hair, greenest eyes, and longest eyelashes I’ve ever seen peers over the divider.

He starts pointing outside, telling me to look at everything he’s pointing at. “I spy with my little eye… a sky!!!! I spy with my little eye… a tree!!!” This happens for the next 15 minutes. Quincy (whose name I later learn) pointing at blatant, in-yo-face objects that very clearly don’t need “little eyes” to “spy”.

I wish I could tell you I got bored of playing these games with chatty little three-year-old Quincy, but it is no secret… my willpower IMPLODES in the face of cute boys (ain’t that the truth -_-), so I kept Quincy company in his games for a few hours. The boy would not stop talking. Infinite cute.

“CHEEEEEEEEEEESE.”

“QUINCY YOU LITTLE FLIRT,” his mother yells. “C’MON Quincy, let’s go take a nap.”

And with that, my brief stint with my little Quincy comes to an end. Oh, to have love and to have lost.

I end up sitting in the Observation Car for the entire day, admiring the grand views as we navigated the vast terrains of the Rocky Mountains and serpentining our way alongside the picturesque Colorado River.

As if this train ride required any more symbolism of ‘Murica than it already possessed, I witnessed three bald eagles fly by our train. I’d never seen one before, and to be honest, while I’m not a huge bird fan, watching them soar through the air was truly awe-inspiring. THEY ARE SO BALD!!!!!!

(I know they are not bald.)

I headed to dinner extra early that day since I skipped lunch altogether. (1) Because I was distracted by Quincy; (2) Because I probably ate upwards of 1,500 calories at breakfast. No ragrets.

The waiter sat me down at the only table in the dining car with other people. I sat facing a man and a woman, both donning spray-tans, orange as day. The man was bald, with a huge gold chain around his neck. The woman had her hair in a high bun and was very engrossed in her phone.

The moment they greeted me, I could tell they were from Long Island. Thick, thick accents.

We got to exchanging the usual pleasantries – and I noticed the woman didn’t say a word and just stared at her phone the entire meal. Contrasted with her husband who kept the conversation going… and then some. I could barely get a word in – but to my benefit since I was starving AND I’m an introvert and deathly fear awkward silences.

In likely the single lull of the entire conversation, I get a question in: “So why did you decide on taking the train to Reno? Why not fly?”

The wife, after having not said a single word besides “hello” in the beginning, looks up from her phone at me, dead in the eye: “We hate flying.” Hard stop. Then back to her phone.

… Well okay then, ma’am.

The husband, without missing a beat, goes to explain in the most longwinded manner possible, why they waged a personal war against commercial airliners. Apparently they both hadn’t flown in a plane since 9/11, after which TSA really cracked down on the screening process. He was clearly very irked by the utter “violation of privacy” exhibited by the TSA. “If one of your college professors did to you what TSA agents do to you, would you agree to take the class?”

I mean, I nodded at first – seemed logical, I guess… but he doesn’t stop there.

He then raves (a bit too enthusiastically, I might add) about how Amtrak literally doesn’t give a flying fuck what one brings onto the trains. “When you got onto this train, did anyone search your bag? No, right?! ISN’T THAT GREAT!? *big smile* They don’t have to search our bags and everyone is just fine on this train, am I right?!?!?”

It dawns on me: Holy shit, what is this man carrying in his luggage!? Why is he so damn terrified of someone screening him?! ………. Is he a NY mob boss?!?! I mean, he has a Hollywood-esque mob boss accent?!?! I am not proud, but these were all legitimate thoughts that ran through my head, as I’m stuffing sugar-free cheesecake in my mouth.

Suddenly, “Murder on the Orient Express” didn’t seem so farfetched.

I’m kidding.

(half kidding)

This was merely an ignorant hypothesis, by no means proven. But yeah, just in case I made sure throughout the dinner to stay in his good graces, nodding along to everything he said, as he moved onto the topics of politics and government corruption (further corroborating my hypothesis, I might add……..)

After I took my last bite of cheesecake, just at a cusp-of-a-moment as he takes a breath mid-sentence, I excuse myself from the table, saying I had to use the restroom and that I’d head back to rest afterwards. I then proceed to power-walk back to my room and slam the door behind me.

That was night number two. I went to bed and slept with one eye ever-so-sliiiightly open.

To be honest, the last day (really just the remaining 10 hours) was pretty dull. Mostly because I cloistered myself in my room all day – beckoned Alfredo to deliver room service for lunch. To be honest, I didn’t necessarily want to meet any more people on the train. Not that I was scarred, no, but more so that this here loner had hit her people-quota for the month.

Given the 1.5 hour delay at the very beginning of the journey, this meant that our train schedule was completely out-of-sync with other freight train schedules, so we ended up having to wait at multiple points for freight trains to pass before we could continue on, further perpetuating our delay. Cursed, I tell ya.

The train whizzed past a winter storm in the Tahoe area, overlooking the vast and gorgeous Donner Lake (despite its morbid history).

I sat in my room, listening to music, for the rest of the journey back to Emeryville, California. That was the perfect anticlimatic way to end my very odd, roller-coaster-of-an-adventure aboard the California Zephyr.

The moment I stepped off that train, 55 hours later, I realized I hadn’t taken in any fresh air in two and a half days. Only recycled air and train exhaust fumes. And to be honest, it didn’t bother me one bit. The trip was everything I could’ve imagined, and beyond. I saw everything I wanted to see, but perhaps more importantly – and something unbeknownst to me – I met all the people I wanted to meet.

I wholeheartedly believe that everyone enters into your life for a reason. And though each of these people on the train had only intersected paths with me for mere minutes, never to be seen again, I do believe they did so to teach me… something. Nothing will be as immediately revelatory as my wine-drunk-woman/couple-from-Paradise-Indiana epiphany. For instance, at this very moment I have no idea what good meeting a potential NY mob boss is to me right now — but I trust that it’ll come. With time, young Mendi, with time.

I wanted to capture all of the different characters I met onboard Train 5, because even though they are all so clearly etched in my memory at this very moment (TONGANOXIEEEEEEEEEEE), I know that with the passage of time, like even the most saturated of tattoos, these memories will fade.

I want 75-year-old-Mendi to eat a plate of Fettuccine at a restaurant in Italy and immediately think back to that good man, Alfredo, attendant in car 533 of the California Zephyr train as we snaked through the snow-capped Rocky Mountains.

I wrote this for posterity.

Let the good times (re-)roll…

With love,

Mendi

24 Dec This entry was published on December 24, 2018 at 10:29 am. It’s filed under California, Travel Sprint, United States and tagged train, travel, Travel Blog, usa. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.