31 Days of Flashbacks: Train Trip West: Day #5

Click these links to read about Day #1, Day #2, Day #3, and Day #4. 

Monday, August 8, 2011
In which we finallly get on a train and travel through prairie and mountains.
At 2:21am our train finally arrived in Creston, IA (we were supposed to board @ 8:41pm). So we quickly woke up the kids and helped them put on their backpacks and carry all of our luggage onto the train. We were spread out all over the train, trying not to disturb people too much in the middle of the night, as we found seats, got settled in and went back to sleep. (This time, thankfully, I was seated next to a young boy with a handheld gaming device that he was still playing at 2:21am, not a creepy man.)
After catching some sleep we had bagels w/ cream cheese for breakfast then set about enjoying our train ride.

Hannah was a quick learner of the game of cribbage and beat Grandpa on her first try.

Fun cousin time on the train playing with stuffed animals.

We got to ride through some beautiful sights!
We crossed prairies.

Saw a crop duster plane

Mountains came into view.

We rode through beautiful canyons with tons of tunnels and the 6.2 mile Moffat Tunnel.

The first tunnel

Approaching another tunnel

 We spent a lot of time looking out the windows at the beautiful scenery!

Snow capped mountains in August :)

On this day we got to travel through some of the prettiest country I've seen. If you can't take a train trip across the whole country I would highly recommend getting on in Denver and heading west. The views are simply breath-taking! These photos just don't do the views justice!! We even missed seeing some of the more scenic views because the train was behind schedule and we ended up traveling through them at night. (I'm excited to visit some of these scenic vistas again on our interview road trip, and possibly move nearer to them.)