SoCal Anniversary Trip Itinerary:
- Friday:
- Check into our “hotel”: an airstream in Echo Park
- Relax
- Go to Clifton’s for dinner & drinks
- Saturday:
- Arrive at LA Union Station, destination: Santa Barbara
- Board the Vino Train
- Breakfast on the train
- Walk around Santa Barbara
- Take train back to LA
- Dinner on the train
- Head back to airstream
- Relax
- Sunday:
- Relax
- Head home to pick up the kiddo
Missed the first part, here ya go – Southern California Anniversary Trip – part one
SATURDAY: TRAIN RIDE, PACIFIC TRAIL CAR TO SANTA BARBARA
WHAT A COOL EXPERIENCE! My husband heard about this train ride on NPR. Yes we listen to NPR because we’re cool people. Here’s the jist, a group of vintage rail car enthusiasts buy and restore trains to their former glory, then rent them out through LA Rail for the rest of us to enjoy. In my opinion, they’re not out to rip everyone off to take a ride on the train. They genuinely want to share this experience so they’ve priced it very reasonably. And I think that’s really cool.
We arrive at Union Station around 7:30am as our train’s departure time is 7:50am. We booked the Vino Train trip to Santa Barbara. The Vino Train has a wine guide aboard that will take you to wine tastings in Santa Barbara – hence the name. Since we don’t drink, we opted out but you can stay with the guide for as little or long as you want. Quick side note – Union Station is amazing and so beautifully restored itself that it’s worth a visit whether you’re going on a train or not. We arrive at our train and are greeted by super-friendly staff members, given our landyards, and board the train.
What’s so cool is we get to experience two different train cars on this trip – a casual and a fancy one. For the ride to Santa Barbara we rode in the Pacific Trail car – the casual train. Built in 1950, the Pacific Trail car is a long-distance chair car. That means lots of amenities like leg room, windows for all, and reading lights. They don’t build ANY form of travel with the customer in mind like they used to! Oh man that sounds like an old persons rant. Anyways, the seats are laid out two front facing and two rear facing so it’s a grouping of four seats, which encourages conversation with others.
So, the cheerful conductor welcomes everyone, he’s one of the fine people who restored the rail cars. A good breakfast spread is served shortly after we take off, buffet style. We take breakfast back to our seats, eat on trays, and enjoy our meal. Side note they are accommodating to everyone’s different food needs.
The train ride up lasts around two and half hours and never felt too long or too short. We go through tunnels, talk with others, walk around from car to car and stand in the vestibule. The vestibule is the open area in between the two cars where you can literally let the wind blow in your face as we ride along. It’s best to go out when you finally cut over and parallel the coast. It was so absolutely beautiful and such a unique experience.
SANTA BARBARA
We arrived in Santa Barbara around 10:20am on a beautiful day. This was my first trip to Santa Barbara and I’d heard about how pretty it is, so I was excited! Now remember we are still on a relaxing trip, so our goal here was to meander around, exploring at our leisure. Lucky for us there was a trolley to enable our lazy traveling. The trolley costs .50 cents a ride and since State Street, Santa Barbara’s main drag, is so long it’s well worth it.
These were the items on our to-see list: State Street, the county courthouse and the beach. State Street, like I mentioned is really, really long. Shops vary from cool artisan finds to large chain stores. The stores are on both sides of the street for a bazillion blocks – a rough estimate. All more upscale than not. And if you’re in the mood for coffee you have the same options! It’s a well-kept, clean, cute street.
At the top of State Street and over a few blocks is the Santa Barbara County Courthouse. Again, we might sound like old people here wanting to visit a courthouse but it is so pretty! Built in 1929, the courthouse is a Spanish Colonial Revival style and is still a fully functioning courthouse. It’s all about the details here: hand-painted ceilings, imported tiles, murals – and the place is huge. We walk around, along with the five other people we saw occasionally, shouting “look!” every five seconds. Every turn there is something beautiful, and often times, quite large, like the doors and chandeliers. Make sure to take the elevator up to the tower. You’ll get a 360 degree view of Santa Barbara from the mountains to the beach. It’s truly a gem of a place!
We also took a quick walk to the beach and along the pier. The pier is nothing exciting, but piers are a thing you do when you’re at the beach. However, it was a slightly chilly day so we didn’t stay on the pier long or walk along the beach. Being from Southern California, we didn’t come for the beach, which sounds like a super blow-hard thing to say but, it’s true. Overall Santa Barbara was, wait for it – relaxing and a great place to visit.
TRAIN RIDE, OVERLAND TRAIL TO LOS ANGELES
We departed around 4:45pm from Santa Barbara. Now remember there were two rail cars on this trip, so this time we got to go on the fancy car – the Overland Trail. This 1948 train is a first class club lounge, complete with a bar, barbershop and a shower! Did you even know trains had barber shops?!?! How on God’s-green-earth do you cut hair in a moving vehicle without cutting off an ear? Turns out there were only six of these barbershop lounges so it’s pretty cool they were able to rescue this car and bring it back to life.
The Overland Trail rail car is a lounge, so it’s laid out differently from the Pacific Trail car. There are individual seats with small tables and groupings of four again but this time with a full table in between. I think we completely lucked out taking this car home. This is a rich folks car! Here we are traveling back along the beach, the sun setting, being served drinks, then dinner brought to us in this old, fancy rail car. I mean, come on! This really is the best way to travel.
We arrived in LA around 7:20pm, parted ways with our new train friends, and head back to the airstream. It wasn’t long until we knocked out.
*Top photo credit by Santa Barbara Daylight Vino Train
SUNDAY
Sunday arrives and to be honest, I had grand ideas of Amir and I taking advantage of the entire Sunday. Maybe walking around LA or heading to a flea market on the way home. I know I can’t help myself. But it was supposed to rain around noon that day so walking around was out and we wanted to beat the rain home. Instead, we woke up, had a little breakfast and headed out to pick the kiddo up.
Even though the trip was technically two days and two nights it felt like a four day weekend because of our theme – relaxation. I think I’ve hit that home enough, right?
Missed the first part, here ya go – Southern California Anniversary Trip – part one
