𝗦𝗟𝗔𝗞𝗜𝗡𝗚𝗙🍩🍩𝗟: Ottumwa to Colorado, December 2000

Dec. 29, 2000 - The Burlington Trailways bus to Ottumwa was 2-1/2 hours late out of Des Moines that morning. I didn’t get to the Amtrak station until 1:30pm. I bought my ticket so I could leave from Ottumwa instead of Osceola as originally planned and walked over to the Tom-Tom Tap to kill some time.

I polished off a shot of Jameson, a pot of coffee, a patty melt with a side of pasta salad, and a 7-Up. I could have gone up the hill to the Siegel household to chill but didn’t care to haul my luggage up.

Eventually I hooked up Steve and Vicki and spent the early evening at the house, which revolved around inspecting water damage from a broken pipe, eating soup, and perusing Gladiator on the tube.

The California Zephyr came out of Chicago late and was losing more time along the way. Siegel took me down around 9:30pm, but it wasn’t until around a quarter to eleven before it arrived.

I was allowed to claim my sleeper room in Ottumwa even though my reservation was booked to start down the line in Osceola. I made my way down past the end of the platform and had to trudge the last car length through foot deep snow.

I finally made it on board and settled in to bed. The ride through Iowa was slow and bumpy, it took awhile to get to sleep. Next thing I knew we were pulling into Omaha over three hours late. The train would remain late for the duration.

Plains of northeast Colorado.

Ambulance picks up an asthmatic attack victim, everyone gets a smoke break.

Dec. 30 - After leaving Omaha I went on the nod again and didn’t wake up until somewhere around Holdrege, Nebraska. I ate breakfast while we were still in Nebraska. An older woman in coach had an asthmatic attack and was taken off the train in Fort Morgan, Colorado and loaded up into an ambulance.

During the stopover in Denver I dashed for a payphone and scored a couple liters of water. Lunch was served as we ascended the Front Range. Snow started to show up on the landscape on the way up and had accumulated to skiable amounts by the time we reached the east portal of Moffat Tunnel.

After the ten-minute ride through the mountain we emerged into a veritable winter wonderland. I took dinner early and sacked off around 7pm only rousing a couple of times through Utah.