SLO by Amtrak

Last weekend my wife & I rode the Amtrak Coastal Starlight passenger train line from San Jose to San Luis Obispo (4.5 hour ride).

Here is a photo diary of our travels and 2 night stay in SLO.

Before riding our first train of the day we picked up coffee and some snacks in downtown San Mateo:

We hopped on to Caltrain, riding from downtown San Mateo to San Jose Diridon:

We transferred from Caltrain to Amtrak by walking between platforms:

I stowed my folding bike in the luggage area, to avoid having to pay an extra $20 each way for bicycle storage:

The view from the observation car:

Our seats were in the lower level (no assigned seating in coach, but the conductors sit companions together):

Some of the views from the train ride:

I read my book, The Homevoter Hypothesis, taking diligent notes:

Having arrived at SLO, we retrieved my wife’s bicycle from the luggage car:

We checked into our bed and breakfast to drop off our bags & bikes:

We parked our bikes and walked a few blocks to the main downtown drag of SLO:

We had dinner and walked around the downtown some more, and found it a very pretty place:

Lots of bikes, with a distinctive style of bike rack:

Excellent dessert option:

The next morning we met up a friend of ours & got a tour of the state university in town, Cal Poly SLO:

And visited the outdoor livestock classroom:

The city is lined with an incredible set of pedestrian and bicyclist-friendly “greenways”:

We gorged on pizza for lunch:

And then traced a walk around town based on where the San Luis Obispo Creek led us:

There was a historical adobe house, but it was not open as we passed by:

And our walk led us back by the Amtrak station in town:

And its train museum, where there was a cool-looking hand-crank train:

Before dinner we picked up our bikes and biked to a wine bar, starting on a bad bicycle lane before finding a wonderful bike path:

And appreciated a great sunset, from Mitchell Park:

Our last morning in town we had breakfast at our bed and breakfast and biked to second breakfast at a donut shop, named “SloDoCo”.

I got an excellent artichoke & spinach croissant:

And read the local newspaper:

We killed time and built up an appetite for lunch by biking around slowly, picking up sandwiches to hold onto for dinner on the train.

The tree-lined streets were impressive, and this photographed gentleman explained that the pictured ficus tree was planted in the 1930’s:

Trees play a vital role in quality of life and land value, and requires concerted investment over many decades:

As we walked back to the B&B to pick up our bikes & bags before heading to the train station, it was interesting to see the changing land use:

We also briefly stopped at the art museum for 20 minutes:

Return travels home:

Great trip. Would recommend.