I took my very first train ride in the States yesterday.  My daughter’s Assisteens group had a field trip down to San Clemente Beach:

Fifteen girls and five moms went.  The train ride took about 1 1/2 hours with frequent stops.  It turned out to be a beautiful day.  We had lunch at a wonderful Mexican restaurant and  managed to do some shopping.  I even came across this cute frilly store overflowing in pink –  a girl can never have enough pink :-):

Since we drive around here so much, and rarely use public transportation, I felt a bit insecure without my car at first, but the train ride ended up being a lot of fun and we didn’t have to worry about parking once we got to the beach :-).