Although I had the alarm set for 7:30am, I actually got up around 7:00am, and I could hear someone in front of my room making a scraping sound. I looked out and they were scraping a very thick coat of ice off their car's windshield. I checked the weather and it was exactly 32 degrees.
I got showered and met my friends in the parking lot and we all walked down to a local diner to have breakfast. When we walked in I noticed a catholic nun in full regalia sitting by herself, and later when we were eating she came over and asked me if my t-shirt was real. It's an HPD Dispatch shirt, and asked because she said she was from Dallas. I said it was, and I stood up and shook her hand, we exchanged pleasantries and went our separate ways.
After breakfast we walked back to the motel, loaded the vehicles and headed out for a day of train chasing through the mountains. We chased the same train we will ride tomorrow. We all got a lot of neat pictures and videos, but it's rough going as most of the roads and rocky and not maintained. Beautiful blue skies, no clouds and perfect temperatures made for wonderful captures of digital images.
We made it back to town and started chatting with more of our party that arrived today, with a total of about 22 people now in our group. Various forms of alcohol were being consumed and the stories got bigger as the evening went on. We all ordered burgers and salads from a local eatery and enjoyed the group dining experience. I slipped out quietly as it was getting late and I had been going since early this morning.
We meet tomorrow morning at 7am for breakfast, then load on buses to catch the train at the other end of the line and ride it back to Chama. There are weather warnings issued for tonight as they are forecasting temps around 27 degrees overnight. Most of the passenger cars are open-air and we'll be above 10,000 feet most of the time, so it will be very chilly. I'm all set though and look forward to once again riding this beautiful train over the mountains and through the brilliant yellows, reds and oranges of the aspen trees turning for the winter.
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