Day 2: California Zephyr through CA & NV

So I waited in the Sacramento station for about half a hour and then headed to the platform to wait for the CZ. This time the sleepers were on the rear of the train (they were on the front of the CS). 

The train pulled up and I boarded the last sleeper, car 0632 and headed up the stairs to room #9. I got excited thinking that I would get to spend the trip watching from the "railfan" window at the end of the car, but once I got up there I noticed that we had a private car behind us! Below is my view out the back of the train. Instead of seeing the tracks retreat behind the train I had a view of someone else enjoying their dome car. 

I settled into my roomette and Lamar the attendant came by to greet me and review everything. A good group of people boarded in SAC so I heard him repeat his spiel as he made his way down the car. 

Around 11:45 the diner made the first call for lunch so I headed down there. I was sat at a table with a couple traveling home to just outside Rochester NY and a gentleman from Minneapolis. He would detrain in Iowa and drive the rest of the way home. I had the "special sandwich" which was a bratwurst on a pretzel roll. It was pretty good for Amtrak. 

I followed it up with the triple chocolate mousse parfait which reminds me of the desserts on Acela. 

After lunch I headed to the sightsee-er lounge car for a bit. This car has big windows to take in the scenery. We started heading up into the Sierra Nevada mountains through Donner Pass. The scenery was breathtakingly beautiful. 

We continued to climb up the mountains until suddenly everything was snow covered. I even saw a little ski slope! I think you can see the chair lift going up the hill in the picture below. 

We finally emerged from the mountains I to Truckee, CA. I noticed a river on my right with lots of folks fly fishing. 

You can see that the landscape is starting to change here and that there are not as many pine trees. After about an hour we stopped in Reno, NV. I used this opportunity to hop off the train and look at the private car. It is called the "Sierra Hotel".  A quick trip to google tells me that this car is rented at a cost of $4,00 - $6,000 per day and sleeps 8 guests. Nice!

After we left Reno, I noted that the landscape continued to change. The trees had all been replaced with scraggly bushes. Everything looks like a shade of beige as far as the eye can see - although we were still running along a river. The mountains have been replaced with rolling foothills. 

The landscape then flattened out even more and we passed through what looked like desert.

I got the call for my 5 pm dinner reservation and trundled off to the dining car. I opted for an early seating because I knew that I would want to go to bed early. 

In the dining car I was seated with a older gentleman traveling by himself back to Chicago. Here is the menu:

I opted for the turkey shank, which was supposedly braised in dogfish head beer. It was actually really good - far better than some other meals on Amtrak. I preferred it to the dinner I had last night in the PPC of the coast starlight. 

It was of course accompanied by standard Amtrak salad and roll. 

And then for dessert I had the vanilla bean gelato. 

After dinner the landscape became scraggly again with hills in the distance. It kind of reminds me of some areas we passed through on the Empire Builder before. 

Tonight we will pass through Utah, arriving in Salt Lake City around 3:15 am. Hopefully I will be asleep!!