We had a very enjoyable time with my brother, Stewart, and his wife, Kathy, in Palo Alto, getting to walk around and meet their neighbors and see the urban side of Palo Alto, not just tourist stuff. We did tour Stanford's campus which was very nice and on Tuesday morning, 8/18, we boarded the California Zephyr in Emeryville, CA, which heads to Chicago every day from the West Coast. Our first destination was Salt Lake City, arriving there at 3:20AM (!!!). Great time to get off a train in try to find someone's home, thank goodness for GPS units. The cabbie had one and we just plugged in my old elementary school buddy's name and off we went to his home. Although we did have a sleeper on the train, which is a story by itself, neither Sheila nor I did get much sleep although the train itself was neat. Going through the Sierrra Nevada range leaving California for Nevada was beautiful and we spent a lot of time in the dome car just looking at scenery. Very nice seats in that car that swivel around and let you see landscapes on both sides of the train, even can visit the lounge car and sip a brew (or wine) as you're watching the scenery go by. The sleeper compartments are interesting, that's a story in inself. I'm just glad we had many years of experience with our VW camper bus and how to negotiate small areas and "try" to sleep. Leave SLC Friday morning at 4:30AM, getting into Denver at around 7:35PM, another 17+ hour ride, but it should be good going through the rockies to Denver. The blog has been updated to include pics from our adventure up through Yosemite, tx for looking!!! Everyone take care, we're on the last two weeks of this journey. j&s