A Train to California!

The Frontrunner commuter rail opened up this last week, and as many of you may know it was free to the public until May 1st. We decided it would be fun to go for an adventure. It was Jazz game night, but our friends either had better offers (Mutual of course) or were laying on death beds with horrible sicknesses, so we would be watching alone. I also had the inkling that it wasn't going to be a good night for the Jazz, so we decided to take the risk of missing part of the game to go for a trainride. We decided to hop on the train at our Layton stop (we should call it the Sill's stop -- its right across the street and right behind Doug and Emmy's) and cruise into downtown, go out to eat, and then come on back to hopefully catch most of the game.

Here is Sammy and I as one of the trains are pulling away from the station

Okay, let's be honest here -- the trainride wasn't all THAT exciting, once you are on, its just like taking the bus or a tram anywhere else. However, it was pretty cool to see how fast we got going, in fact we could see the freeway traffic and we were going a bit faster than them most times. Also, because of the fact that the fare was free, there were a zillion people on board, so we didn't get a seat. I would assume that would change once you have to pay some money to go for a ride! And sitting down did seem to be much more enjoyable than standing.

The Frontrunner takes you to the Salt Lake Central station which is just a couple blocks from the Gateway. I guess you could just walk it, but there is a Trax station right there that will take you to the planetarium. We rode it for free as well, not sure if that will always be the case either... Anyway, we ended up in Gateway and decided to eat at the California Pizza Kitchen. We had eaten at the Orem one and the Vegas one, and we weren't disappointed. It was great!

And yes Michelle came with us, here is finally some proof! Sorry babe, I'll try to take more of the pictures next adventure. :-)

Time to hit the road to get back home! In the evening the trains are spaced out longer (an hour between each one) so there were TONS of people waiting to get on. Luckily we got there a bit early so we were close to the front for getting on the train. Here are a few pictures of Sammy on my shoulders while we were waiting for the train to come back.

We thought that the Plumber T-shirt and the plumber baby went well together. :-)

We had a good time, though the train took a lot longer than we thought it would. It was about an hour from the Layton stop to the gateway. You can usually drive that in half the time. It did seem to be a bit bogged down by the sheer number of people that were using the trains due to the freeness of the ride, so it would be interesting to take it for a spin when there weren't so many people clogging up the time. It was fun to go for a train ride while it is still a novelty though, and it turns out the Jazz decided to not even play (beat by 26 points!! ouch) so it was time well spent!