Train to Palisade
So technically this post should probably fall under a Throwback Thursday, but I’ve decided to cut out my Throwback Thursdays and just blog on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays as my workload is making it hard to balance blogging, teaching, and making art.
I’ve always thought traveling by train was kind of a romantic way to travel. There are several ways one can get to Palisade other than driving, one way is by train via Grand Junction. In early January 2020, Andy and I took the Train from Denver to Palisade. We’ve talked about taking a train trip for years, with the Orient Express being high up on our bucket list. Sadly, that trip costs about $10,000 per person so we opted to start with our local Amtrak and take the California Zephyr to Grand Junction and explore Palisade in the winter.
Our adventure started by taking the RTD A line down to Union Station early in the morning. If you’ve not been to Union Station, I highly recommend checking it out. The architecture is beautiful and there are a lot of upscale restaurants all around it as well as inside. We grabbed a coffee and waited to board the train. The California Zephyr actually runs between Chicago and San Francisco, coursing through the plains of Nebraska to Denver, across the Rockies to Salt Lake City, and then through Reno and Sacramento into Emeryville/San Francisco. So, our jaunt from Denver to Grand Junction is a small part of a larger trip.
For the longer journey, the Zephyr has overnight accommodations of superliner bedrooms and bedroom suites but seeing as ours was a shorter trip we went with the upper-level coach seats for the panoramic view of the passing scenery. The advantage to the lower level was better access to the restrooms. Advanced train reservations are required but not individual seat reservations. If memory serves me our tickets were $50 each way so a total of $100 per person. The trip takes about a day so it is twice as long as driving (if not longer) but you avoid getting stuck in ski traffic and you can just sit back and enjoy the views. It is also a great exercise on being okay with moving slowly!
The trick to picking your seats, as they were not assigned was to figure out which side to sit on, so you had the best view as you traveled through the mountains. One side you’d be facing the side of the mountain while the other side looked out across the landscape! Once we stashed our luggage and other carry-on bags under our seats, our journey began. After we watched as our train pull out of the station and wound its way up the foothills, we decided to head to the dining car for some breakfast. The meals, this includes lunch as well, were not anything to write home about but we did enjoy conversations with other dinners as we shared our table. After our meal(s) we went to explore the observation car which was cool because the walls and ceilings were glass, so you had optimal viewing areas and the chairs swiveled so you also had 360 viewing! The observation car was a first come first serve so actually getting a seat could be challenging. There was a time limit but not everyone followed protocol, so we didn’t get our turn right away. When we weren’t in the observation car, we were chilling in our seats either enjoying the views, reading, or napping – as I said the downside is it is a long slow ride.
I must say it was interesting as we got closer to Palisade because I was seeing the views I often see when we drive over the mountain but instead of seeing the train and the railroad tracks as we move along I 70 we were in the train looking across to I70 verses the other way around.
As we moved past Palisade it was beautiful looking at the peach trees and vineyards with their lightly dusted snow coverings. Then it was onto Grand Junction. The train station there was in stark contrast to the one in Denver. The original train station sat abandoned next to a more contemporary, non-descript single story building. That kind of made me sad because you could look inside the building through dirty, sometimes broken or partially boarded over windows and see the hidden beauty of the old architecture. There was even the mot beautiful stain glass window of a Native American on horseback located on the very top floor of the building, it appeared to be in perfect condition. The colors were orange, yellow and green hues and it was beautiful but yet no one ever gets to see it because the building is all boarded up! I wonder how hard it would be to get access to that window and perhaps some of the other architectural elements in that building that are basically just laying waste.
So that was our first train adventure! I will say, if you are planning on taking a train to wine country be it Colorado or California remember numerous bottles can be heavy and cumbersome to load on and off a train! Make sure you have a portable dolly; this will make transporting wine a million times easier!