It was early morning in mid-December when I awoke to the sounds of steady rumbling while lying in the top bunk in my 9-by-5-foot family room in Amtrak’s Southwest Chief train . I climbed down a ladder to find my husband and 5-year-old daughter still snoozing in the lower bunk. Grabbing a seat on the gray banquette by the window, I pulled aside a blue curtain and was astounded by the view of peachy-pink clouds as we rolled across the rugged desert. We were passing through Holbrook, Ariz., and the sunrise was beautiful enough to be in a watercolor painting. At that moment, I felt like I was in a Wes Anderson movie .
There’s a child-like wonderment that comes from taking a train through the expansive Southwest to New Mexico in the winter that you just won’t get from plane travel. We opted for a 16-hour overnight trip instead of a two-hour flight to Albuquerque because we longed for a different way of traveling, one we hoped would slow time in our busy lives. Although we were asleep for half the ride, we spent the remaining hours taking in the beautiful scenery, which looks especially magnificent through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the Sightseer Lounge, and enjoying a three-course steak dinner before arriving in Albuquerque around 11 a.m.