July 9-10 Along the Colorado and over the intercontinental divide

Drugged by lost sleep yet reluctant to close my eyes in case I missed something as we travelled through the Grand Valley along the Colorado River (historically known as the Grand River). Then on through Ruby Canyon a 40 km canyon accessible only by raft or Union Pacific Railroad - that’s us! Here and there the air was filled with scraps of cotton candy from - willow, birch or ? 

Ruby canyon named for its red sandstone walls.





The river was a swirling brown torrent of almost continuous rapids, category 5 in places! The banks, swollen where canyons allowed, were dotted with campers canoeing and/or fishing





This section of the river is called Moon River. Why? Rafters, like these guys, give the ‘moonie’ salute as the train passes.

We seemed to climb from canyon to canyon twisting around sharp bends hugging the rocky walks as we ascended the Rockies. All the while the mighty Colorado River raced away from us tumbling down through those same rocky canyons.

Up on the high plains the river spread out in a lazy dawdle.



The train had 9 carriages inc observation and dining cars plus a private carriage right at the back. No idea if it was occupied.

We didn’t reach the roof of the Rockies! Instead we travelled through the Moffat Tunnel, a railroad and water tunnel built in the early 1900s that cuts through the Rockies for 10km. It cut the distance across the mountains by over 100 km. At its highest point the tunnel is almost 3000m above sea level.

Once on the other side of this great dividing mountain range, the Continental Divide, the rivers flowed eastward - surprise surprise!  And we began the gradual descent into Denver, the mile high city. 

From there the land was lush green with lots of trees and acres of corn. Not far out of Denver we spent an interesting night on the train surrounded by an amazing lightning storm. Quite spectacular! In the dead of night, or so it seemed to me, I peaked out the window and saw tiny lights flashing all around - fire flies everywhere. Quite beautiful. 

Throughout the trip land, except for the desert, was sodden and the rivers swollen after a very wet winter and spring. Lots of farming land still flooded, but we were to cross even larger bodies of water - the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. In a word? Voluminous - in the extreme. 

There was a large family of Amish board.

Lots of water still lying around after months.



The Missouri River. Would have liked to have stopped for a while.

The mighty Mississippi River. I had no idea it started way up here but then I guess the Cajun (or Arcadian) people originally from France, came to Louisiana from Canada via this river I believe.

We experienced lots of delays on the way to Chicago, the first major stop on our coast to coast journey, for all sorts of reasons the most bizarre of which was an escaped alpaca on the lines! End result? We arrived in Chicago - ~4000 km and 7 States after we left the west coast, seven hours late. Wouldn’t happen in Russia! Ah the joys of travel!