The Great American Rail Trip- Leg 1
I am sitting on the train to start leg 2 of our journey across America. It's 6:30 am and a bunch of people on the train seem to think it's acceptable to talk extremely loudly when the rest of the train is trying to sleep.. What better time than now to reflect on the first leg? As a reminder, our first leg involves us traveling from Cleveland to Flagstaff, AZ
After this, we took a shuttle bus to a trailhead which allowed us to hike into the Canyon. The South Kaibab trail goes all the way down to the Colorado River, but we just went to Ooh Aah Point and turned around (about 2 miles round trip). It was quite a strenuous hike, but the views were totally worth it.
After some much needed rest, we did another short hike into the Canyon on the Bright Angel Trail. This provided us with a different view of the Canyon. Like the South Kaibab trial, the Bright Angel Trail goes all the way to the Colorado River, but we just did a short section.
Lava River Cave
Off to LA
Train 1: Cleveland to Chicago
To start our journey, we had to hop on the Capitol Limited, which provides service between Washington, D.C. and Chicago. The train departs Cleveland in the wee hours of the morning- it is scheduled to depart at 2:58 am but due to delay, we ended up leaving around 3:20 am.
While it is unfortunate that the train leaves at this ungodly hour, the good news is that you arrive in Chicago around 9 am. This makes me particularly excited to use Amtrak for some weekend trips to Chicago- get off work at 5, sleep for a bit, hop on the train early in the morning, catch some z's in Amtrak's fairly comfortable coach accommodations, and arrive in Chicago at 9 am on Saturday morning, with 2 full days to explore the Windy City.
That is exactly what we did. After checking our bags to Flagstaff, we took a nice stroll through Chicago- about a 1 mile walk to the famous Cloud Gate Park, more popularly known as "The Bean". Strangely enough, we saw former Ohio Governor John Kasich along the way! After grabbing some lunch, we bused back to Chicago's Union Station to catch our 2:50 pm train to Flagstaff for a 30+ hour train ride on the Southwest Chief.
While a 30 hour train sounds pretty awful, I'll be the first to tell you that it is a surprisingly pleasant experience. Amtrak trains are huge, which means that you can stand up at any time and walk around and stretch your legs. Amtrak also has a snack bar on board, with a good variety of options.
The Southwest Chief also features an observation car with tables. Here you can play card games, enjoy a meal, play Mario Kart on the Nintendo Switch (as we did), or simply enjoy the beautiful Southwestern scenery. All of these things make the time go by quite quickly- and I actually got about 8 hours of sleep in coach! We all agreed that we weren't tired of being on the train quite yet upon arrival in Flagstaff.
Note on Sleeper Cars
Because the conductor just made an announcement pertaining to passengers in sleeper cars, I thought I'd explain how that all works. Sleeper cars essentially provide you with your own bedroom on the rails. This service comes at a price of course, and can run you over $600 per night. All meals are included, however, and the meals are 3 course.
Anyway, back to the journey. We arrived in Flagstaff about 30 minutes late, caught an Uber to our hotel, and went off to sleep. As a side note, we stayed in the Econo Lodge on Route 66. It was truly a great place to stay- clean rooms, friendly staff, breakfast included, all for $77 per night. Quite a steal!
The next morning, we got a rental car. We used Turo, which is a peer to peer car sharing service, an Airbnb of cars, if you will. We had a great experience with this, and our host was kind enough to drop the car off at our hotel! Turo, and all rental car companies, charge a young driver fee (unfortunately) for renters under 25. For Turo, it's $30 per day. It sucks, but there isn't really a way around it.
Sedona
Once we had the car, we headed about 50 minutes south to Sedona to get our first taste of the stunning scenery Arizona has to offer. We started off with lunch with a view and set off on a hike through the beautiful Red Rock country. We conquered the Devil's Bridge trail, which was about 5 miles and involved over 700 feet in elevation change, but it was totally worth it at the end.
Grand Canyon
The next day, we set off for the Grand Canyon- about 1.5 hours from Flagstaff. We ate a quick lunch before heading to the Mather Point overlook to get our first view of the Canyon. This observation point is just a short 5 minute walk from the visitor center parking lot and is wheelchair accessible! The Grand Canyon is surreal- it almost looks fake with how, well, grand it is!
After some much needed rest, we did another short hike into the Canyon on the Bright Angel Trail. This provided us with a different view of the Canyon. Like the South Kaibab trial, the Bright Angel Trail goes all the way to the Colorado River, but we just did a short section.
After that, back to Flagstaff! We stopped for dinner in Williams, AZ along Route 66.
Yakin' the 'Rado
The next day, we rented kayaks and kayaked the Colorado River through Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. There is only one point of river access for basically this entire area as well as the Grand Canyon, so we started there and hopped on a pontoon boat, which carried us 10 miles upstream, past Horseshoe Bend, and we dropped our kayaks in and paddled down what might be the most beautiful scenery in the entire world. It was amazing, stunning, relaxing, and just flat out surreal. The pictures don't do it justice. We even swam in the frigid river just to say we did. It was 48 degrees!
For our last day in Flagstaff, we ventured into Lava River Cave, which is a 0.75 mile tube-shaped cave. This was really interesting- we had to bring flashlights with us because the cave is pitch black! It was a little creepy to be honest, but it was pretty sweet too. A volcanic eruption carved out this cave hundreds of thousands of years ago.
We returned our rental car at 5 pm, and our Turo host was kind enough to meet us at the Amtrak station. Unfortunately, our train was delayed by almost 2 hours, but we passed the time by grabbing a bite to eat and some beers in Flagstaff and just walking around. At 10:50 pm, we were off to LA. We are due to arrive around 10 am.
A Note on Delays
You've probably noticed that every train we've been in has been delayed in one way or another. Amtrak generally operates on freight rail lines, meaning it must share the rails with freight trains. While Amtrak is supposed to have priority over freight trains, this does not always happen in practice and the unfortunate result is delay.
However, when you're on vacation and kind of just going with the flow, the delays don't matter too much. In fact, in the case of LA, we are arriving at 10 am instead of 8 am, which works into our favor because we can't check into our hotel until the afternoon, so now we have less time we have to kill.
Stay tuned for updates! If you have any questions, drop them in the comments below!
Trip looks amazing!
ReplyDeleteThe kayaking looked amazing. Was it difficult? How far did you end up going?Did anyone get motion sickness on the train? Did it feel claustrophobic at all?
ReplyDeleteThe train is not at all claustrophobic and no one got motion sickness. You have 3 cars where you can walk around for a change of scenery or to just stretch your legs. I think a video might be good for me to post to give it more perspective.
DeleteAs far as the kayaking, you park at basically the only place in Northern Arizona where you can access the Colorado River. Then, they take you up river in a boat essentially as far as you want to go. We did 10 miles and it was not difficult- you could really just float most of the way (as we did)! Horseshoe Bend is like 7 or 8 miles upstream from the boat launch.