Sunday, February 20, 2011

Happy Trails to Central!



Andrew Stefanick & Joe Danko at Pittsburgh International Airport




On the Plane to Denver
Travel Itinerary:



  • Boarded United Airlines flight in Pittsburgh to Denver at 4:00 PM. 







  • Transferred in Denver with a three hour layover.







  • Boarded United Airlines flight in Denver at 9:30 PM, Mountain Time.




  • Transferred to Spokane Train Station with the help of Blue Coyote Cabs.

  • Boarded Amtrak Train at 1:00 AM, Pacific Time.


At the Train Station in Spokane, Washington
  • Traveled by train from Spokane, Washington to Browning, Montana.

    
  • After enjoying some terrific breakfast and the amazing sights of Glacier National Park, we arrived in Browning, Montana at 10:30 AM, Mountain Time.  


20 Hours of Travel Later...
A Rob Burns Account of our Travels:

With a 3 1/2 hour plane ride (initially delayed due to excess weight from passagers' baggage), our adventure to Montana began. Arriving in Denver at around 6 o'clock (8 o'clock Pittsburgh time) we grabbed our bags and headed off in every which way in search of food. We met back where our plane boarded and realized we had 3 hours left in our layover. After filling our time with conversation and exploration of the airport, we boarded our plane at about 9 o'clock. We flew through the dark for an hour and a half and landed in Spokane at around 11 o'clock (2 AM Pittsburgh time). After standing around the wrong baggage claim for a while we found our bags, well, some of us did. A few of our group members' luggage was lost, but were evenly compensated with a bottle of shampoo and a toothbrush provided by the airport. We caught a cab to the Amtrak station to catch our train. This is where the jet lag began to hit most of us. After the initial excitement about the random games and old food they had in the train station, we all began to fade a bit. We finally got onto our train and slowly started towards Montana.


Eating Breakfast on the Train
After a restless night of about 3 nonconsecutive hours of sleep, I awoke to a thin line of light coming across the top of the hills. I decided that there was no chance of falling back to sleep and just stared out of the window until the breakfast car opened. By this time the sun was providing enough light to see the landscape we were rolling through, and it was impressive. After about 10 minutes in the breakfast car we came to a series of large mountains. The sun was just coming over the peak of the mountains, which were covered in a misty fog at this point. This made for a remarkable photo op. It reminded me of something you would see as a screen saver on a computer. The orange-red color of the sunrise reflected off of the snow covered mountains that were now the backdrop to a frozen lake. This was just the beginning to the amazing scenery we witnessed on the train ride out the reservation. I'm sure pictures of it will be uploaded seeing the amount of them that were taken by everyone. After another 4 hours on the train we finally arrived in Browning, Montana.

R. Burns '12

 


Mr. Sudnik and Ryan Scott enjoying the view