Day 3 was the most scenic day of the trip.
We boarded around 8:30am, headed for the Continental Divide before dropping down into Denver. And yes, they fed us again almost the second we sat down. By this point in the trip I was genuinely tired of eating. As I’m writing this, I hadn’t had a bite since our late lunch the day before at 3pm and I am still not starving!
Day 3 was the most interesting stretch of the whole journey. We passed through over 40 tunnels, one of them the Moffat Tunnel, which runs 6.62 miles underground. It took about 15 minutes to get through and it was a little eerie in that “we are very much inside a mountain right now” way (I am a little claustrophobic after all), but it moved quickly enough that it never felt long. We saw several bald eagles, which are always cool to see. And we saw a really creepy cliffside trail in one of the canyons – and someone was even walking their dog on it!
The canyons were the coolest part of the trip. We wound through Glenwood Canyon, Burns Canyon, and Gore and Byers Canyons, tracking alongside the Colorado River for most of the day. And the Colorado salutes kept coming, somewhere around 20 more, including one memorable quad salute that had the whole train laughing. If you are not familiar, these are moons from the river goers :).
Once we crossed the Continental Divide, it was all downhill into Denver.
I had expected this trip to be a little bit boring, so I packed two books thinking I’d finally get some reading done. I didn’t even start either one because it was so interesting looking at the scenery.
Today we fly home to the kids and the dogs, which honestly might be the part I’m most excited about. I’ll keep sharing more on the full train experience over the next few days, what worked, what I’d do differently, and who I’d actually recommend this trip to.
