Last month I took the Southwest Chief out to Las Vegas and back for SmartSense’s company summit. Flying would have taken five hours and zero stories. The train took roughly forty hours each way, which gave me a lot of time to write and to read a couple of books cover to cover. I also shared mutliple meals with different and interesting people.
The eastern leg from Elyria to Chicago is just an overnight handoff. The real run is the Southwest Chief out of Chicago Union Station, across Illinois farmland, into Kansas, up over Raton Pass on the Colorado/New Mexico line. There is a tunnel right at the summit, which is the highest point on the route. From there the Chief drops down through Lamy, Albuquerque, Gallup, and Flagstaff. It does not actually stop in Las Vegas; the closest it gets is Kingman, AZ, where Amtrak runs a Thruway shuttle the rest of the way. It’s a passenger van, not a bus, but it gets the job done.
The Chief itself rolls out of Chicago in the afternoon and turns the rest of the day into farmland and river crossings.
By the second morning we were on the high plains of eastern Colorado, climbing toward Raton Pass and the New Mexico line.
After the pass, the train threads down through Las Vegas NM, Lamy (the stop for Santa Fe), and Albuquerque, then runs west into Arizona and into Flagstaff before the late-night handoff at Kingman.
Arrival was rougher than I had planned. The shuttle dropped me at the Flamingo around 2:30 AM local time, and the front desk politely informed me that check-in was not until 4 PM. They were sold out for the night. The hotel they called for me was sold out too. So I sat in the lobby, watched the sun come up, walked outside to see the Sphere in person for the first time, and waited.
I finally got into a room around 11:30 AM and immediately slept for thirteen hours.
Monday and Tuesday were summit days. Most of my Asset Monitoring team was there. It was great to see everyone in person; that was almost reason enough for the trip. SmartSense’s employee band, CYA: Cover Your Assets, played on Tuesday nights.
Wednesday was my one free day, and I made the most of it: more than 25,000 steps. I started at the Flamingo and made the Bellagio Conservatory & Botanical Gardens my first stop. The seasonal display was up, and the giant goldfinches over yellow tulips were the highlight.
Later in the afternoon, on the walk back, the Bellagio Fountains caught me mid-show.
From the Flamingo, the Strip walks itself. I worked south past Caesars and the Paris Eiffel Tower replica, past the bowed yellow Bellagio facade.
A little farther down, MGM Grand’s bronze lion sits at the corner.
Across the boulevard, New York-New York’s Statue of Liberty replica and the red Big Apple Coaster wrap the skyline-shaped facade.
Then Excalibur’s white castle towers, the black Luxor pyramid with its sphinx, and the gold Mandalay Bay tower beyond.
Walking back north, I cut through Park MGM and across the Miracle Mile entrance at Planet Hollywood.
Some of these places I just photographed from the sidewalk. Others got me to come inside. The Strip Target is essentially a regular Target with a giant Bullseye dog statue keeping an eye on the produce.
The Coca-Cola bottle store next door is exactly the gimmick you think it is.
M&M’s World is somehow four full stories of branded chocolate. You can smell the store from the outside.
Hershey’s Chocolate World has the same idea, plus an 800-pound chocolate Statue of Liberty on display, which I am not making up. The Reese’s-scented wax melts came home with me.
The Strip is also lined with candy stores that all blur together a bit. Sour Patch statues, life-size Elvis and Marilyn made of sugar, walls of bulk Jelly Belly.
Between the named places are the in-between places: vending awnings, sidewalk flyers, novelty kiosks, the visual textures of the Strip when no single landmark is in frame.
I was looking for a stereotypical shot of Vegas. A pair of showgirls outside Caramella happily obliged (at a cost, of course).
One picture I wasn’t expecting, but became my target once my team gave the heads-up, was Bluey and Bingo. Both of them gave me hugs while your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man did his Peter Parker routine. This time, I was more than happy to pay for the memories, pictures, and video.
Rachel didn’t ask for any specific souvenirs, beyond pressed pennies. So a quiet side mission of the day was tracking down souvenir-penny machines around the Strip. I came back with more than twenty. Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. turned out to have one of the machines I had been hunting, which is why a Forrest Gump-themed restaurant gets its own gallery on a Las Vegas trip post.
The trip home started at 9 PM with a taxi to the shuttle station, then the van back to Kingman, where I sat outside the locked depot and waited for the eastbound Chief at 2 AM.
Northern Arizona at sunrise, then the Gallup escarpment along Route 66.
The Albuquerque break was long enough to walk past the vendor tables, where I picked up a double-sized blanket that turned out to be the most welcome purchase of the whole trip for the long ride home. Then Lamy again, and by late afternoon a rainstorm was streaking the windows over the high plains.
The next morning’s surprise was Fort Madison: a long stop, a preserved caboose to walk past, and then the Mississippi River crossing on the swing bridge out of town. That bridge was the photographic highlight of the way home.
Then Illinois, a four-hour Chicago layover, and the Floridian east. The roomette on the Floridian has both a sink and a toilet. Actually, the train on the way to Chicago only had a sink. The last few hours through Indiana and Ohio were dark, ending with the Toledo platform sign at some hour I’d rather not name.
Forty hours each way is a lot of train. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.