November 6 on the train.

This morning I watch the sun rise over the Nevada Desert, low mountain chains on either sides. The train rides through the desert, and all I can see beside us is the highway and little towns, mostly trailer parks or prey-fabricated little houses, old dogs on broken porches, windows with no curtains, sometimes with no glass in them, rusty cars in the yards, some that look like flower pots, trees growing out of them, and no people. I'm fascinated. For the first time I see the America of the movies about the Wild West! When I was a kid I had a hero in a story I read in a kid's magazine we used to get. His name was Tommy River, he was always riding his horse named Kiko (we later had a cat with that name), he got bitten by the rattle snakes, and sometimes he stood on his horse on top of the mesa looking in the distance...

It was night when we travelled through Salt Lake City, and because SLC is actually a city I very much wanted to see, I woke up several times during the night just to peak out. The moon was shining nice and bright and I could see that the ground was white like covered in snow. I will have to ask that friendly lady that sometimes sits at my table. It depends where I looked out, she says. If it was around Salt Lake City, it was salt; if it was in the mountains after we left SLC so it was snow. Hmm.. Now I can see the Sierra Nevada in the distance ahead of us. Same lady: "You wait, this time we'll be going over the mountains and not through them like yesterday", I can't wait. This time I will be going to the Sightseer Lounge, windows all around. We are almost in Reno and now I can see the salt. It does look like snow. At Reno Mike who had travelled East to visit a daughter gets off and some volunteer-guides get on. Old men proudly wearing their guide-Amtrak-uniform and I imagine with their heads full of historical facts and dates. We'll see. And so they start: "We have just left the Silver State of Nevada for the Gold State of California". First stop is Truckee. For me this is the first Western looking town with a railway station, saloons and taverns on the main road, for the volunteer-guides, is so many things.. This is what the Amtrak brochure says: Truckee was named after the Paiute chief, Trukizo, father of chief Winnemucca. The first settlers encountered his tribe with the friendly chief yelling "Tro-kay" at them, the Paiute word for "hello". And, note the renovated former Bank of America, now the popular restaurant " The Bar of America".

And then suddenly there is a change in the weather. On the climb up to the Sierra Nevada the sun was still shining. Then the train goes through a tunnel and when it comes out on the other side the fog is covering the mountains, it hangs low over the treetops of the pines an spruces. Pity. That what happens in the mountains. I look out for another little while: the train will climb at over 7000 ft and then the descend will take hours. I go back in my cabin and plan the rest of my trip. I'm looking forward to San Francisco.