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Henry: A little off the beaten path, but the Coast Starlight can bring you near a number of places, parks, and monuments that don't get as many visitors as the "biggies", but still worthwhile.
Among them:
Lassen Volcanic Park, about 50 miles east of Redding, Calif.
Oregon Caves National Mounument, just north of the Calif. border.
Crater Lake
Government Camp Park near Mt. Hood in Oregon
Mt. Hood area in Oregon
Further North in Washington:
Mt Rainier
Olympic Peninsula Rain Forest
Richard
Posts: 1909 | From: Santa Rosa | Registered: Jan 2004
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Crater Lake is great. The lodge has a vvey good restaurant. But Mt. Rushmore is in South Dakota. Also we found it very touristy though the rock carving is truly magnificent.
Posts: 1577 | From: virginia | Registered: Jun 2005
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Oops! I posted Mt. Rushmore..I meant to write "Mt. Ranier". Corrected the post. Richard
Posts: 1909 | From: Santa Rosa | Registered: Jan 2004
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One of the habitues of this forum emailed me that Grand Junction is the best place to detrain and entrain on the Zephyr for a trip to Arches and Canyonlands. Mapquest says Moab, gateway to those parks, is 1 hour 45 minutes by car from Grand Junction. But there's also a "back way" along the Colorado River to Moab.
Now to decide on a good time to go. Maybe early- to mid-March, when things are thawing and daily temps can reach 65, according to the Arches website. (And when roomettes between Grand Junction and Chicago on Nos. 5/6 are still in the $205 range, at least as of today.)
Posts: 2236 | From: Evanston, Ill. and Ontonagon, Mich. | Registered: Feb 2007
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A number of years ago, friends of mine and I took the Zephyr to Grand Junction, CO, We then rented a car and drove from Grand Junction down to Montrose, Ouray, and finally to Durango. The stretch from Montrose to Durango was written up, in a magazine, as one of the "the most scenic drives in the country". I can believe it..the scenery along the way was fantastic. After arriving in Durango we took the Durango to Silverton narrow gauge train.
Richard
Posts: 1909 | From: Santa Rosa | Registered: Jan 2004
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I did the Grand Junction to Moab trip 3 years ago in March with my daughter and it was wonderful. But beware of the AWFUL taxi service in GJT. They have only one cab company. It took them 2.5 hours to pick us up at Amtrak to get to our airport car rental, so we had to do the beautiful trip to our Moab motel in the dark. On the way back I called them 3 hours ahead of our train departure and we almost missed our train. From the airport, which had no waiting cabs! Then they told me they didn't hurry because trains are always late (it wasn't). Both drivers were rude and one smoked and drove with all 4 windows open. This was my 2nd bad experience in GJT with cabs. I tried but Hertz did not have enough staff on hand to pick me up or drop me off.
There were mountain biking events going on in Moab about then so the motels required a reservation. The weather was ideal. We did a loop through Telluride (to ski), Ouray and Silverton and the scenery was magnificent.
Colorado National Monument is also right at the city limits of GJT. The Arches provided awesome hiking opportunities. If only there was a good option to get from train to a rental car in GJT.
Posts: 1572 | From: St. Paul, MN | Registered: Dec 2002
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There is Tool Bar along the top of the webpage to change states of interest. A person could spend months sightseeing just in the southern half of Utah alone, and not cover it all properly.
Also don't overlook Antelope Canyon in Page, Arizona if you are an avid photographer.
Posts: 497 | From: Clarksburg, West Virginia | Registered: Oct 2003
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Grand Junction is the only city I have ever seen where there were no taxis available at the airport.
I dropped a rental car off there about an hour and forty-five minutes before the eastbound California Zephyr was due in 2005.
No cabs.
I called for a cab on the courtesy phone - 'we'll send one out there in a little bit'.
65 minutes later one cab rolls up and picks up all three (I was the first) waiting fares. By the time we have been delivered around downtown Grand Junction, I made it to the Amtrak station about 10 minutes before the CZ pulled in on time.
Short of getting off the train and stretching my legs there, I can't imagine ever needing to visit Grand Junction again.
-------------------- David Pressley
Advocating for passenger trains since 1973!
Climbing toward 5,000 posts like the Southwest Chief ascending Raton Pass. Cautiously, not nearly as fast as in the old days, and hoping to avoid premature reroutes. Posts: 4203 | From: Western North Carolina | Registered: Feb 2004
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Hmmm. After reading the horror stories about taxis at the Grand Junction airport, I checked Enterprise Rent-a-Car at Grand Junction on the company's Web site. You know Enterprise -- the one that picks you up and takes you to the office where the paperwork is done. It has a rental office at 406 5th St. downtown, a few blocks from the Amtrak station.
Maybe this is a new development, but I'll check it out further.
Posts: 2236 | From: Evanston, Ill. and Ontonagon, Mich. | Registered: Feb 2007
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I did a coast-to-coast trip by car in 2004, visiting 10 National Parks. All the parks are great, but my vote for most beautiful National Park is Crater Lake in southern Oregon. That is easy to reach from Klamath Falls, a stop for the Coast Starlight.
Posts: 133 | From: Canaan, CT | Registered: Dec 2004
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One more addendum: Medora is on the former NP, which runs right through Theodore Roosevelt park. One doesn't expect spectacular scenery in North Dakota, but it's there -- truly spectacular, mountains and rolling prairies, hundred-mile views...
I've been fortunate to have a number of head-end rides on freight trains over the years (all legit and work-related). My all-time favorite memory is of standing on the "back porch" of an SD40-2 as we climbed out of the valley of the Little Missouri River in Notch 8, our five units burning through three gallons of diesel every 10 seconds, as our long loaded coal train spooled out around the curves behind us, stretching more than a mile back toward the river crossing. Hoisting 16,000 tons up a 1% grade uses a lot of energy.
And yes, the Ron Burns series is wonderful.
Posts: 614 | From: Merchantville, NJ. USA | Registered: Aug 2000
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You're right. TR is far from what one expects and the views are spectactular.
Posts: 1577 | From: virginia | Registered: Jun 2005
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Finally got around to watching the entire series that I had DVR'd. This was quite an achievement, and an amazing series that is well worth the 65$ purchase price, to watch again in the deep, dark, cold Winter months when I'm trapped indoors. This will be a great addition to my home DVD library. We are quite blessed to have such great National Parks that we can all call our own.
-------------------- The best part of life is the journey, not the destination. Posts: 497 | From: Clarksburg, West Virginia | Registered: Oct 2003
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