I board the California Zephyr on Friday for a 49 hour ride to Galesburg. Jon said he and/or Sonja would pick me up at the station and bring me back to Moline. Thinking about the fact that I’m going to be riding the rails for two days, I decided I needed a plan. I rode from Little Rock to Chicago on the train last summer and the biggest disappointment was the breakfast I choked down in the dining car. Part of my planning process is preparing for how to pass 2 days without being able to cook (or depend on the dining car). I planned a little menu that accounts for every meal on the trip. I may break down and give the dining car another chance, but I want to have a fallback option, just in case the food is as inedible as that breakfast on the Texas Eagle.
I have to plan around the fact that I can’t refrigerate or heat anything. The menu includes a heavy rotation of apples and olives. Some cheese and a little salami will be in the mix. Grapes seemed like they’ll travel pretty well, If I put them in a container to keep them from getting crushed. I also plan to cut up a bunch of celery. Of course I’ll take some peanuts and a chocolate bar.
My other concern is overnight comfort. The cost of a sleeper is a bit steeper than I can afford for this adventure, so I’m making due with a regular seat. My experience on the Texas Eagle makes me confident that I can manage for two nights, as long as I have some accessories which I did not have on that trip. I popped down to IKEA and picked up a cheap feather pillow and a little fleece blanket.
The last item on my planning agenda is deciding what kind of coffee beans to get for Jon. I want to get beans that are very recently roasted so that they’ll still be pretty fresh when I arrive on Sunday. My friends at Modern Coffee in downtown have a pretty wide variety of choices from different roasters, but I’m concerned that the beans will be slightly older than what I can get if I pop down to Blue Bottle for beans roasted on Thursday. Of course the optimum time between roasting and brewing is a fuzzy line. There are some beans that seem to improve as they age for a few days after being roasted. Maybe I’ll bring him a couple of different kinds — an Oakland coffee sampler. (I’m also packing a little Fenton’s chocolate and carmel sauce.)
As I think about this, I realize I totally neglected to factor coffee into my menu plan. I think I may grind a few good beans for myself and take my tiny, single-cup french press and a good mug with me. Surely I’ll be able to get some hot water somewhere on the train.
You’re right that the meals in the dining car are virtually inedible, so it’s good you’re planning to take your own food. Maybe add some breakfast bars.
You should also plan on at least two or three extra meals. These long-distance trains are often 12 hours or more late. We traveled from Denver to Emoryville and the train was nearly 24 hours late (getting into Emoryville at 4:00 on a cold, rainy December morning.) Tell Jon to track the arrival time.
Go to a thrift store or someplace where you can buy cheap, used paper-back books. You’ll have lots of time to kill, and while looking out the window can be interesting for awhile, it’s good to have plenty of reading material, too. If the books are throw-aways, you can offer them to other passengers who didn’t think to bring anything to read. I saved one woman’s sanity by passing along a book I’d just finished.
We enjoyed taking DeLorme atlases of all the states we passed though to see in detail what we were passing by.
Have a not-too-bad trip —- at least a safe one.
— Jill Knuth · Mar 3, 08:25 AM · #