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.

Hawaii Baby!

We just got back from our week long trip to the Big Island of Hawaii. Baby M did quite well and I think he is ready for pretty much any trip we might want to do. Of course his favorite part of the trip was staying in the hotel and riding in a minivan, so he probably would have been just as happy in Cleveland, but mom and dad were quite pleased to be in a tropical paradise.

As you may recall, 4 days before leaving on this trip I learned that I had miscarried 11 weeks into my pregnancy. I had a D&C the next day and left for Hawaii with a bottle of antibiotics and strict instructions not to submerge my lower half in any sort of water for a week. That meant no snorkeling, no swimming and no relaxing in the jacuzzi while watching the sun set over the Pacific. Lucky for me the Big Island has lots to do and we kept busy with other activities.

The Big Island is, as the name indicates, big and if there is one thing I regret about our trip it's that we didn't plan out our week better. There are rocky, sandy, sunny, rainy and volcanic sides to the island. Each has interesting sites, but it can take several hours of driving on winding, 2 lane roads to get to the different areas. Our haphazard approach to sightseeing resulted in missing a few places we wanted to see and probably more time in the car than was really necessary. If you're going to try to see the entire island, I would suggest booking a few days on the Kona side and a few on the Hilo side to eliminate some of the driving.

We stayed at Aston Kona By the Sea in Kailua-Kona and shared a 2 bed/2 bath condo with some friends. The condo was reasonably priced and worked well for us. It was large, had a kitchen and laundry in the unit, a balcony overlooking the ocean and its carpet and wicker furniture were very kid friendly. The resort had a pool, jacuzzi and a strip of sand between the pool and the rocky coast. There are not a lot of sandy beaches around Kailua-Kona (mostly rocks) and since Baby M loves digging this strip was a key attraction for us.

A few of our other favorite activities:

Pu'uhonua o Honaunau - a national park and historical site, there are ancient structures and recreations of Hawaiian temples, plus there are huge sea turtles wandering around.

Chocolate Factory Tour - this was a very detailed tour explaining how the chocolate is grown and processed. The grounds are lovely and there are free chocolate samples.

Greenwell Coffee Tour - we went on tours of several coffee plantations and this one was our favorite, but the best tasting coffee was actually at the Mountain Thunder plantation.

Hilton Waikaloa Village - This resort feels a bit like "Las Vegas - Hawaii!!", but it was a nice place to visit with Baby M. There are boats and trains to get around, a dolphin pond, a protected sandy beach, bridges, waterfalls, basically if Baby M could design a hotel this would be it.

Mauna Kea Beach - Best beach on the island. Beautiful, sandy, waves just the right size for Baby M, fancy hotel bar nearby... I couldn't swim but I would have been happy laying on this beach all day.

Kilauea and Volcanoes National Park - Hawaii has an active volcano and if you are lucky you'll be able to see lava flowing into the ocean. We didn't plan ahead and weren't dressed appropriately for the hike down to the coast, and it probably would have been too difficult with Baby M anyway, but we did enjoy the film in the visitor center, walking through the lava tubes and watching the steam rise out of the crater.