All Aboard! Surfliner to San Diego

For Memorial Day our family decided to take the train down to San Diego for the day.  Baby M loves trains and while we've ridden trains at parks, malls, farms, etc., we'd never taken him anywhere on a full sized train.   So on Sunday night we logged on to Amtrak.com and bought our Surfliner tickets-- 3 round trip tickets from Union Station to Solana Beach, where we would meet up with my family for a BBQ.  It turns out the tickets were a little more than I was expecting ($170 for the 3 of us) but at that point I had already talked up the trip to Baby M so there was no turning back.  

We arrived at Union Station 30 minutes before our train departed and parked in the $7 lot across the street.  Our train left right on time at 8:30AM.  Baby M loved seeing the big double decker train and the train tracks.  I loved the fact that we had plenty of room.  Our coach seats had so much leg room that the only way I could kick the seat in front of me was if I stretched my legs out and pointed my toes.  Baby M couldn't reach the folding tray table on the back of the chair in front of us, which the person seated there should be very grateful for.  Although most of the time there was no one seated in front of us or behind us.  The car remained pretty empty for the majority of the trip. We had brought our car seat along and it fit nicely on the floor in front of the seat next to me.  (There is no way to install the car seat on train, we just brought it to put in my parent's car in San Diego).  We rode past train yards, construction sites, recycling plants and Angel's stadium-- perhaps not terribly scenic, but totally interesting to a 2 year old boy.  Once we got down to Orange County we cut over to the coast and had a lovely ride along the beach.  We took a walk down to the cafe car, had a snack (they mostly had pre-packaged food items) and before we knew it the 2 hour 10 minute ride was over. 

Once in Solana Beach we walked down to the beach and Baby M played on a nearby playground.  As an aside, there was tons of free beach parking-- I couldn't believe it.  You never see that in LA!  Then we headed over to my parent's house for a traditional Memorial Day BBQ.  We came back to the station just before 7pm to catch our train home and were disappointed to find that the train was delayed.  We stood on the platform for 30 minutes watching the Estimated Arrival Time increase in 2 minutes increments until finally it held steady at 7:36pm.  Entertaining a toddler on a cold, narrow train platform is a challenge and this was the low point of our trip.  If we had known how long the train was going to be delayed we would have waited in the station, but since the ETA was changing every couple of minutes we were never sure.  Once the train finally arrived we were back home in a little over 2 hours.

Traveling by train is actually a great option for toddlers.  They aren't confined to the car seat, can walk around to the different cars, eat snacks as needed and visit the toilet whenever they want.  As parents you don't have to deal with surly security agents eyeing your sippy cup or a packed cabin full of harried passengers.   Since Baby M does fairly well on a 2-3 hour car ride, we probably won't take the train to San Diego too often, but I would definitely consider it for trips to San Francisco or other towns in Northern California.

Imagination

Baby M is lying face down on the kitchen floor.

Me: What are you doing?

Baby M mumbles something about trains.

Me: Oh, you're a train? What does a train say? Choo choo?

Baby M (sitting up): No Mommy, train tracks

and he lies back down on the floor. At least he is easy to keep track of this way (ha ha).

Trains! Trains! Trains!

So Baby M has developed something of a train fetish. Even as an infant he enjoyed reading (and chewing) his copy of The Little Engine That Could and then for Christmas last year he got the Fisher-Price Amazing Animals Sing and Go Choo-Choo, a 2 foot long, singing, motorized train. I admittedly fueled his obsession by seeking out train related books at the library like And the Train Goes... and Chugga Chugga Choo Choo. I have been careful to avoid the Thomas the Tank Engine franchise. I don't have anything against talking trains, but I don't like the idea of getting sucked in to purchasing $20 train cars every time we go to the toy store.

Baby M took his first train ride a few weeks ago when we visited my brother in Portland. We rode the train at the Flower Farmer farm just outside the city. He was so excited. The minute we sat down he started shouting "Choo Choo!". The train runs around the farm and stops at a small petting zoo where Baby M got out, fed the chickens and was nearly knocked over by the goats. When we re-boarded the train he got to ride in the "boose" (caboose) with his Daddy.

This past weekend we decided to take Baby M to Travel Town in Griffith Park. This would have been a fabulous idea if it wasn't the hottest weekend of the summer. Oh. My. God. I totally forgot how much warmer it is on the eastside of town. We arrived when Travel Town opened at 10am. The exhibits and museum are free and train rides are $2.50 each. Baby M loved the fact that he got his own ticket to give to the conductor when we boarded. We rode the train, climbed on the full size train cars, watched the model trains run and toured gift shop (the only air conditioned building and it was getting pretty crowded in there). We had planned to stop by the Live Steamers Railroad Museum which is adjacent to Travel Town and only open on Sundays for more train rides, but by the time we were done with Travel Town I honestly thought I would faint or melt if I had to spend anymore time in the sun. I hear really good things about Steamers, so we'll try to go again when the weather is a little cooler, assuming Baby M hasn't moved on to another form of transportation. He has been enamored of airplanes ever since we flew home from Portland. Lucky for me LAX and the Santa Monica airport are on the Westside where we can watch the planes land and feel the cool ocean breeze on our faces.