Somewhere in Wyoming

Our night in the tiny sleeper went surprisingly well. I elected to sleep in the top bunk which requires a certainly n amount of limberness and dexterity. The bunk is only about 2 or 3 feet below the ceiling making it impossible to do much of anything other than slide in. There is a harness affair, designed to keep one from rolling out, which came in useful for pulling myself from the top step, which doubles as a nightstand, onto the the bunk. Turning around in a semi- crouched position was another challenge.. I fell asleep more or less fully clothed, praying I wouldn’t have to make my way down from my perch to the airplane style toilet down the hall. My prayers were not answered, but I never encountered anyone.There was absolutely no room for donning clothing once the beds were made up. Removing clothing was not much easier. Somehow Clarence, our attendant sensed when we had left the cubbyhole to make up the beds at night and stash them away again in the morning.

Coffee in the observation car at 6:15 was a splendid affair despite the hour of the wake up call. We talked to a grizzled Vietnam vet nursing a beer despite the early hour. He had a tendency to retell the same stories with each beer he drank, but he would seem to have had a colorful life of travel, women and a wide variety of jobs so he certainly wasn’t boring...until the 6th beer.

The scenery has moved throughout the day from arid desert in Utah to interesting rock formations visible in the distance, to the more colorful red rock of the Ruby Canyon with the Colorado River in the bottom. There were lots of rafters on the river, many of whom turned around and mooned the train as it passed....

We are now chugging ever higher into the Rockies and will be eating an unfashionably early dinner prior to our arrival in Denver. I don’t know how the staff in the dining car manage to serve meals on a constantly lurching train but I suppose they have had a lot of practice....