The California Zephyr continued, Denver to San Francisco

When I last left off, I was re-boarding the train in Denver to continue my journey across the country to California.
Unlike the ride out from Chicago, where my train passengers included Amish families and a handful of weirdos, the train this time was loaded with bright and dreaded Phish fans coming home from a concert the night before in Red Rocks, Colorado. (You can imagine the smell of patcholi and festive atmosphere of the train)
The fellow to the right of me, wearing an American flag bandanna tightly around his long blonde hair, started up a conversation as we pulled out of the station. A landscaper from Lincoln, Nebraska, 'Frosty', as he preferred to be called, was one of the many following the Phish parade. In front of me was a feisty girl headed from Miami, who works in one of the many posh clubs frequented by celebs such as Puff Daddy and Dennis Rodman. Among the characters to join out roster were Shawn, an ex-con from Las Vegas, who now brews beer up in Eugene, Oregon, and Jenni, who ironically enough is also a Montessori teacher who had just moved from St. Charles, IL out to San Francisco with her husband (we've stayed in touch and so far she's my new best friend out here in the bay).
After forming our little group, we decided to re-locate to the back of the train, where there was an empty car for us to plug in our i-tunes and enjoy some of the craft beer Shawn had brought with him.
Shortly after boarding, the conductor announced that instead of going through snow-capped Rocky Mountain peaks and breathtaking canyons, our train was going to be re-routed through Wyoming. B-o-ring. Wyoming is a void in the middle of the US, a land devoid of people and pretty much anything to look at. But because of this routing mishap, we were told we would now get a three hour break in one of the most exciting cities in America: Salt Lake City, Mormon Capitol of the world.
Despite this ill-turn of fate, we worked ourselves up to a pick of excitement, anticipating the opportunity to attempt to inact a few hours of harmless debartury upon the Mormons. As it turned out, our conductor, Roger, was a Mormon himself, but was not at all amused by our behavior or jokes about looking for a few new wives during our layover. Just as we entered Utah and the beer ran out,the train screeched to a hault.
Roger's voice could be heard over the intercom:
"There appears to be a train with a broken engine in front of us. Not sure how long we'll be stopped for. But, Dorthy, We're not in Kansas anymore, and the penalties for controlled substances out in Utah are swift and severe". We were stuck looking out into the dusty void of Utah for three hours before the train started to slowly move again, and because of our delay, the Mormon Gods saw to it that we would only have a ten minute break in Salt Lake City. We were starving. One guy in our group jumped to the rescue and started calling around to all the pizza joints to see if anyone would deliver to the train station. Just as it seemed that every pizza place in town shut down by 9pm, Pizza Hut saved the day by agreeing to meet us on the train platform. And so, just as we pulled into the station, Chris gathered our cash, ran off the train to the waiting pizza van, made the exchange and we were on our way! Too bad those Mormons couldn't have thrown in a six-pack.
We all got some sleep and the next morning, while the scenery hadn't changed much, the laws of the land certainly had. We were now in Nevada, the state of legalized sin. We pulled into Reno around 11am, and despite the fact that we again only had a ten minute break, it was enough time for one dude armed with a skateboard to hit up the liquor store and come back with a gallon of vodka. The lunch hour cocktails were a bit too early for me, but I still had fun chatting with these people from such varied backgrounds, and getting tons of advice and recommendations on living in San Francisco. Our conductor, Roger, had gotten off in Utah, and his replacement was a much more laid back gentleman from the east bay. This new conductor allowed us to get off the train at all the stops for a quick game of volleyball before re-boarding.
You could see the smiles break over everyone's face as we finally entered California and curved around Lake Tahoe. At our first stop in California, the condutor got on the intercom:
"Welcome to Sacramento, for all you smokers out there, you may now step off the train and 'burn one', if you know what I mean".
After months of planning and worrying if I had made the right decision, I had arrived in California, and all was well. The sun was shining, I had already made some new friends, and life's possibilities seemed endless...