I can't pick you up at the San Diego airport; he is 87 and does what he can to keep his freeway driving to a minimum.
Just southwest of Vista is Carlsbad, California, which has an airport. However, a one-way flight from New Orleans to Carlsbad runs about $350 - about $100 more than a corresponding flight to San Diego - and I was hoping for something cheaper.
What about non-airplane possibilities? I wasn't in any sort of rush, so why not take a train - I hadn't ridden any kind of train in almost twenty years - or even a bus*? Both Amtrak and Greyhound could take me to Oceanside, California, just northwest of Vista and at which my father said he would be willing to meet me. Figuring that train travel would be more comfortable (or at least less uncomfortable) than bus travel, I booked a NOLA-to-Oceanside Amtrak trip for $191.
(*Bus fans, did you catch the AP's recent "New breed of buses draws Thanksgiving travelers" article? Unfortunately, neither Megabus, BoltBus, nor Wanderu could be used for the trip I wanted to make.)
Getting to New Orleans' Amtrak/Greyhound station was no more difficult than taking the St. Charles Streetcar to Lee Circle and then walking a few blocks downtown - no $35 cab ride to the airport required. Gratifyingly, at the station I wasn't subjected to any TSA-type degradation: I wasn't groped or irradiated but merely had to show a photo ID to an agent in order to print out my ticket, and I can deal with that.
Trip specifics
My trip had two legs:
(1) I traveled from New Orleans to Los Angeles on a Sunset Limited train and
(2) from Los Angeles to Oceanside on a Pacific Surfliner train.
This is the most direct Amtrak route from New Orleans to Southern California - the total trip time is just over two days - and also the cheapest, and its only departure days are Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday (wildly circuitous and much more expensive alternative routes are available on other days of the week).
Scenery
In Louisiana and East Texas we saw mile after mile of bare tree 'forest', and in West Texas and New Mexico we saw mile after mile of tumbleweed country - not exactly postcard photo material, shall we say. I did get a nice view of the Pacific Ocean toward the end of the Pacific Surfliner leg, however.
Food
The Sunset Limited train features a dining car and a lounge car. Price-wise you would expect train food to be marked up in a major way as train passengers are a captive audience of sorts, and it is: you, too, can pay $2.25 for a 12-oz can of Coke. It was my original intention to not eat anything during my trip, but I gave in:
(1) On the first day I bought a $1.25 apple and a reasonably good $2 cup of coffee from the lounge car.
(2) On the second day in the dining car I had a $7.50 scrambled eggs breakfast comprising two scrambled eggs, a portion of roasted potatoes, a small whole-wheat biscuit, and two cups of weak coffee.
A welcome respite from food captivity occurred at the El Paso station, at which the conductor exhorted us to get off the train and avail ourselves of the homemade burritos sold by Juanita the Burrito Lady. I duly snagged two of Juanita's green chili/potato/ground beef burritos - muy bien! - this was definitely the highlight of the trip.
Overall comfort level
Not bad; still, two days is a long time to spend in transit for a somewhat fidgety person such as myself. I don't regret traveling by rail but I'm not so sure I wouldn't fly if I could do it all over again.
Getting my person to Vista was relatively easy. Getting my belongings to Vista was another kettle of fish - I'll tell you about it in the next post.
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