The last day of Mom and Dad’s trip promised to be slightly dreary, weather-wise. Considering that there’s not much to do in San Diego on bad weather days even in the best of times, I wanted to think of a fun activity. I decided we should try to out-travel the clouds and head North on the Surfliner!
I have never taken the Surfliner before, but I knew it went through beautiful coastal towns before it turns inland towards LA. While it goes back out to the coast north of LA, those stops are too far for a simple day trip. My first choice was San Clemente, but it doesn’t stop there as frequently. The next station is San Juan Capistrano. I thought I had never been but in fact I had- when I was very small. Mom and Dad remembered a trip they took there when they lived in LA almost 40 years ago. They were excited to go back.
We bought our tickets online and met on the train. I took the ferry from Coronado, while Mom and Dad walked over from their hotel. The ferry schedule was a little tight to make the train, but it all worked out. I brought mimosa ingredients for the train so we had nice drinks on the way up. Turns out, we weren’t supposed to drink alcohol on the train, but the conductor didn’t say anything. We didn’t find out until the afternoon when the Southbound Debbie Downer conductor informed us of the rule. Eh, win some, lose some.
The train went pretty slowly until we were north of Del Mar. Apparently, the ground is not super stable so there are speed restrictions to prevent disaster. The coastal scenery as we headed North through Camp Pendleton was beautiful. After about 90 minutes we arrived in San Juan Capistrano.
We had about 2.5 hours until the return train. The mission was closed that day, so all I have for the blog are a bunch of lame pictures, including one with a little bit of finger! Classic photographer technique.
But, what do you do when life gives you lemons? Have margaritas! When we talked to the (fun) conductor on the way up, she recommended El Adobe de Capistrano. After a short walk around the town, we went there for lunch and ended up having lots of margaritas- pineapple cilantro, red pepper cucumber, blood orange- so many amazing flavors! I had the President’s choice for lunch, which was a platter of President and Mrs. Nixon’s favorite food items. It was tasty but really, the margaritas were the stars. So delicious!
Then we walked back to the train station, boarded, and headed back to San Diego. It was a wonderful day and I recommend it as a San Diego day trip idea to anyone, especially if the Mission is open!