The grand voyage from coast to coast started on Monday, three nights ago in Boston. I had arrived by a crappy US Airways flight from Frankfurt via Philadelphia the night before. Before I left with the Lake Shore Limited to Chicago I deceided to visit the JFK Memorial. The picture was taken from the inside of the amazing building (Thanks I.M. Pei).
Then with the said Lake Shore Limited it took me about 22 hours to arrive in Chicago. For one night the reclinng seat was OK and you have plenty of space and all the Americans I met on the way were really niece.
A short break for lunch and a elevator ride up the Sears Tower was just the right thing to do in the 4 hours in between changing trains. I entered the Empire Builder and off we went for the two nights to Seattle, across an long an empty stretch of America.
Huge corn fields, lonely small towns, sometimes a little bit of oil or vast emptyness, that is North Dakota and Montana. There was really not a lot to see and we went through the Rocky Mountains by night.
Now I arrived in Seattle. After 5 093 km, 1,543 on the Lake Shore Limited and 3,550 on the Empire Builder I arrived at my destination. A little bit tired, though this is from the jetleg not from the trains. My roomette was nice and certainly for a single person enough for this time. The meals that were included in the price were delicious, noting compared to German Rail and simply for the people I met it was such a great journey. So much more stile then flying and such a much more intensive way of ariving.
During my journey I finished two books: „The Clash of Civilisations“ by Francis Fukuyama (I linked to the original essay, just read that, no need to read the book!) and „The Submission“ by Amy Waldman. When the committee for the 9/11 memorial found out who made the winning design, the trouble started…
More pictures from this transcontinental trip of a lifetime at my flickr stream.