a journey through the american west - by Jasmine Li

Taking a long journey on low-speed rail has for a while been on my bucket list.1 So, I organized a trip with friends this Thanksgiving break on the California Zephyr, which runs from Chicago to San Francisco over 50+ hours. Enjoy! On Thursday, I take the bus from Ithaca to NYC, then an evening flight to Chicago, all to just reach the starting location of the Zephyr. This might be my first experience traveling exclusively to take another mode of transport. We crash at Jo’s place that night, though I end up getting zero sleep — catching up, learning to juggle and do jiu-jitsu, and talking about research delightfully gets in the way! But fighting delirium from the all-nighter, we make it to Union Station and board the 2PM Zephyr on Friday with ~10 minutes to spare. The four of us taking the train together are seated in the same row on the final upper-level car. Almost immediately we are introduced on the announcement speaker to Ms. Yolanda, manager of the on-train cafe, who describes the

Taking a long journey on low-speed rail has for a while been on my bucket list.1 So, I organized a trip with friends this Thanksgiving break on the California Zephyr, which runs from Chicago to San Francisco over 50+ hours. Enjoy! On Thursday, I take the bus from Ithaca to NYC, then an evening flight to Chicago, all to just reach the starting location of the Zephyr. This might be my first experience traveling exclusively to take another mode of transport. We crash at Jo’s place that night, though I end up getting zero sleep — catching up, learning to juggle and do jiu-jitsu, and talking about