Day 12: THE FINAL LEG! Oxnard to San Diego!

I woke up very early in the morning, excited for the day but a bit sad that the trip was ending! We called our last taxi of the trip, and rode to the train station. The Oxnard AMTRAK station had a convenient building to wait in, and we bought our tickets at a machine outside on the platform. We were about to catch the Metrolink commuter rail to Los Angeles Union Station, so we had to wait on the platform to get on the train while it made a brief stop. A short while later, the train arrived.

Oxnard platform

The brand new train rushes in to the station

New interior of the Metrolink train

It was a pretty long ride on the Ventura County Line Metrolink, so I was asleep for most of the way. Eventually, the train opened its doors at the LA Union Station platform. Unfortunately, we did not have enough time to visit Los Angeles, so we took the stairs from the island platform to the underground station area. We had a quick croissant breakfast at the Starbucks, then took the stairs back up to the platform labeled by an LED dot display showing "Orange County 800 Oceanside". This train was very important. If we missed it, we would have to wait 6 hours and only get to San Diego in the evening. 800 was one of the few trains that went all the way from LA to Oceanside.

Train 800 at the Union Station

People exiting a train

Interior of an older Metrolink car
Very similar to the Sounder commuter rail, but with different pattern.

View from the train

After a relaxing 2 hour ride, train 800 pulled into Oceanside station. This was where we would transfer to the very last train of our trip: the COASTER commuter rail. But we had about an hour to wait, so we headed down to the beach. Some people were taking a surfing lesson on the cloudy day (no way would I do that!), and I used my trusty NOOK for the last time of the trip. 

Back at the station, we bought our tickets at the TVM, and (with some delays from the credit card) we got our tickets: the last of the trip. Very many people were about to board this train, so we quickly walked to the right platform. It was pretty much the standard west coast commuter rail train, with the bright blue COASTER livery.

It was another scenic ride, like countless buses and trains before in the trip. But this was the last. No more getting up early in the mornings to catch a bus to some far off place, no more Pacific Ocean scenery as a standard part of the day, no more new regions to explore but San Diego.
Getting off the train, I was greeted by a bright red San Diego Trolley car, one of the really old ones.

We walked to our very last hotel, the Holiday Inn Express Old Town. Dropping off our backpacks, we immediately came back to the station. We still had one last thing to do.
The Trolley Blue Line took us all the way to our destination all along: the Mexican border! On the train, we met a man who used to be in the Marines, and is now the owner of a business which sells home security systems.
Once we got off the trolley, we were immediately greeted by a McDonalds, and many signs indicating the walking path across the border.

A short walk, then we were told that we couldn't go any further without going into Mexico. Here we were, at the Mexican border. The end of the trip!
(Note: More pix coming soon)

Porting Over Schedules

Recently, I have been porting over my schedules to epictransitjourneys.com. Check there for everything but the Vancouver to San Diego schedule.

Day 11: Santa Maria to Oxnard, CA

Today, we woke up promptly to catch a commuter bus to Santa Barbara. I looked out of the hotel window for the last time at the tiny planes at the Santa Maria Public Airport, brushed my teeth, and set out.

Ducks walking around near a stream

City of Santa Maria

We waited in a completely unmarked parking lot right next to a baseball stadium, with a ton of commuters heading to Goleta and Santa Barbara. Epic Transit Journeys tells us to take the Goleta bus, then take another bus to Santa Barbara, but we have decided to just take the direct route.

Clean Air Express bus

The bus dropped us off at a small, (again) unmarked bus stop in Santa Barbara. We were immediately greeted with a combination of a jungle and a city, with exotic trees and plants growing in areas of the wide sidewalk.

But before exploring the city, we went straight to the fanciest IHOP restaurant I have ever visited. There was a wooden IHOP sign in the front, and inside there were glass roofs and huge windows, but most impressive of all was the gigantic tree growing right in the middle of the ring-shaped restaurant! Yep, that picture above is not from the street, but from the inside of the restaurant! The service was very quick, and the food was good.  

After breakfast we headed straight to the beach on the Waterfront Electric Shuttle, a tiny little electric bus not unlike the San Francisco cable cars in size and openness. We got off at the beautiful Santa Barbara beach.

There were a lot of garbage/recycling bins on the beach, probably from a recent party. We relaxed on the beach on the cloudy day, happy that we have all this spare time.
Eventually, we made our way off the beach and to the Metropolous Fine Foods Market. It was kind of like an upscale grocery store/deli, and they made very good soups. The most memorable part of the store was that they called their brownies "Super Fudgy Moist Brownies". Unfortunately, we didn't take any pictures of it.
We took the electric shuttle back up to Downtown, and hung around Nordstrom until it was time to catch the (second) Coastal Express to Ventura. The wait for the bus was short, at a thankfully marked bus stop on the sidewalk. A crazy lady was trying to get someone to give her five dollars, so I was glad when the bus came. It was a brand-new Greyhound style MCI J4500, and I soon fell asleep in the soft, large seat. To get to our next hotel, we had to make an unexpected transfer at the Ventura TC, but the Gold Coast Transit route 6 was waiting for us.

Gold Coast Transit New Flyer C40LFR

The bus took us straight to the hotel, the Courtyard Marriott Oxnard. It was undergoing renovation, but still it was one of the more memorable hotels for me. The carpet was a bright blue color, with more brightly colored patterns on it.

The room. Notice the bright colors, soon to be taken away by the renovation.
Photo courtesy of mhnsaves.com

Our day finished with a walk along a busy highway/arterial street to a Topper's Pizza. The building was interesting, with brick walls and random street signs saying pizza related things. Topper's pizza was decent, but not one of my favorites. On the way back from Topper's, we took the (much nicer) residential route back to the hotel. After this, there was only one more day to go.

Day 10: Santa Maria layover: 4th of July!

On this day, we did not ride any transit at all. On the 4th of July, there is no bus service, so we just relaxed in Santa Maria. Since we needed to do the laundry, we walked through the park and to the laundromat.
Here are some pictures of the park:


It was very hot and we had to walk a long way, so we dropped our stuff off at the laundromat and had some ice cream at the Paleteria Linda Michoacana. It served Mexican ice cream, so the chocolate was not very good. However, the pistachio was apparently spectacular.

We had lunch at the Taco Bell nearby, then walked back to the laundromat, park, and hotel. Santa Maria turned out to be a nice little town to spend the 4th of July in, mostly thanks to it's great park right next to our hotel. We had dinner at Round Table pizza, because Marco Polo was closed.