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Sunday morning I left the house at 11 and walked 1 block to Starbucks and picked up a coffee, a frapacino, and an iced green tea. A few minutes later Heriberto and Skip pulled up in Heri’s car. I handed in the drinks, jumped in the back, and off we zoomed to the Santa Fe Depot downtown (although we had to steer Heriberto passed the airport; he kept thinking we were flying and started to turn at Laurel). They just started boarding Amtrak's Pacific Surfliner as we walked up so we got on and found seats on the ocean side. Before we knew it we were gliding smoothly, quietly, quickly through downtown past the airport, Mission Bay, La Jolla; heading towards Irvine and the giant IMAX movie theater at the Irvine Spectrum Mall to see Avatar in 3D.

A word to the wise: do not travel with us if you’re super cool and will be embarrassed by 3 goof balls acting like teenage tourists taking pictures of each other and carrying on at every amazing sight along the way. We’ll understand if you spend most of the trip in the café car.

The train ride is truly beautiful, going right along the beach in many places. And it’s fun to see familiar sights from a different perspective and notice things you miss from the car.