Traveling to Santa Rosa

I think that there are ways to travel that are better than others.

One helpful principle is to avoid cars if you have the choice by taking public transit.

My wife & I traveled from San Mateo to Santa Rosa for a weekend in this fashion.

We began our trip by riding the SamTrans El Camino Real bus:

From the bus we boarded BART, the regional train, riding it to the Embarcadero station which is a short (<5 minute walk) to the San Francisco Ferry Terminal.

At the ferry building we picked up some snacks:

Keeping an eye on the ferry departure times, we afforded ourselves a slow walk to the correct gate for boarding the boat:

I really liked this sign!

We arrived uneventfully at Larkspur ferry terminal, having reached Marin County:

We had an appetite for lunch, and there is a large plaza of shops between the ferry terminal and the Larkspur SMART train station, where we were headed next.

Lunch was delicious, at Souvla (a fast casual chain):

Before heading to the train we used the public bathrooms at the Larkspur Mart and it had some very odd wall art:

The walk from lunch to the train platform walked through a parking lot. Expensive cars, but nicer flora:

We arrived at the station with a few minutes to spare:

We had never ridden the SMART train before, and the cars were new and nice:

Looks like they are ready to offer food service if they ever choose to/find a vendor:

Rail has priority:

The views from the train were awesome:

Having reached the downtown Santa Rosa SMART station, we walked 1.5 blocks to our hotel.

Having checked in and dropped off our rolly bag (in which my wife and I had combined our change of clothes), we set off around Santa Rosa on foot.

Walking from the hotel to the downtown required passing under a freeway overpass, which included a surface parking lot:

This one photo is so emblematic of American urban planning.

A plaque memorializing someone, hidden behind signage for car parking.

That someone is Robert Bishop, who has little in the way of Google search results about him but appears to be a former mayor of Santa Rosa and previously owned a car dealership.

My wife and I reached the Santa Rosa mall on foot and meandered around the downtown–seing some fun sights:

We entered a used book store which had an entertaining inventory:

I found a fantastic book on the history of streetcars in San Mateo, our city of residence:

One aspect of our travels that was unexpected was the visible homelessness:

Inside the library were quite a few folks who were there for shelter more than the media offerings.

I assume that there have been tremendous economic effects in the region due to wildfires destroying housing stock and displacing people.

The downtown had an assortment of live musical performances by local high schoolers, which were really good and added vibrancy to the area:

Walking a bit further south of dowwntown, we came across a massive transit center, focused on buses and parking structures:

Funny graffiti:

And a defaced historical plaque, marking the first telephone in Santa Rosa in 1884:

More historical markings:

Walking a little further we came across a brewery and a live performance:

A short block away there is a beautiful river path:

A beautiful local park:

Walking home after dinner, it is a gorgeous city:

The next morning, we tried to borrow bikes from the hotel to go to breakfast but the hotel staff shared that the bikes had been stolen the night before!

We had filled out the safety waiver and read the safety checklist, but it was all-for-not:

We walked back to the SMART train station from our hotel and picked up a coffee before beginning the train + ferry + BART + bus train in reverse.

Fueled up:

A lot of walking and a cheap bag, we destroyed the wheels on our rolly bag!