@frostwolf I swear if I were in Oakland right now I'd kidnap you and drive you to Santa Cruz. Yes in the middle of the night.

@Leucrotta :3 !! I'd go!

@Leucrotta Huh, we somehow never considered the possibility that there /were/ beaches here even though we're right next to the ocean. Santa Cruz, eh? Wonder if we could take a train there.

@Leucrotta This place is certainly NOTHING like the beach town we /very/ rarely saw when growing up, which was a smaller town (smaller than this, anyway) with brightly colored houses everywhere. Very cheery!

(Wilmington, NC; though I don't know if the beach houses were actually in Wilmington or if the city was just nearby.)

@frostwolf It'd be a hugely long haul but; you can use BART to get down to San Francisco/Diridon. From there you can take the 17 express bus to get to Santa Cruz and that'll get you to see the mountains and forests a little - also that bus has WiFi. Once there you can walk to the beach, or along West Cliffside if you like.

@Leucrotta Sheesh, that's a ways! – but ooooh, mountains and forests...

@Leucrotta Although Dublin/Pleasanton might be an easier way to get to the mountains and forests, direct train ride. At least I think the train goes through some kind of mountain pass or something... hm, I bet our phone map has a topographic layer.

@Leucrotta Hah, there's this big expanse of Nothingness between Castro Valley and West Dublin/Pleasanton stations... it'd be cool if we could get out somewhere in between there.

@Leucrotta ...huh, where the heck is Diridon? The only Diridon things our map seems to have are all down in San Jose.

@Leucrotta *looks up BART system map* ohhh looks like Diridon /is/ in San Jose. I thought the name sounded familiar; there's a planned future Diridon station down that way.

@frostwolf Okay! BART didn't used to have a station down there (it ended in Fremont). CalTrans *does* go to Diridon. It's a long walk from downtown San Jose where the convention center is. The 17 bus has always left from there.

@Leucrotta CalTrans? Huh, what's that?

We could also take VTA from Milpitas BART – it connects there. :3

Past Fremont there's now Warm Springs/South Fremont, Milpitas where all the transit connections are, and Berryessa! https://www.bart.gov/sites/default/files/docs/system-map-detailed-version.pdf

The Berryessa BART isn't actually too far away from where the 17 starts; I wonder if we could do a long walk there and skip the VTA leg. Light rail is super fun, but that's more money.

... okay yeahhhh no that's too far to walk, but maybe if we took a bus instead of a light rail train it'd be cheaper.

@Leucrotta (San Jose itself also looks really nice to hang out in. Maybe we should go do that more.)

@Leucrotta ... *snorts* hahaha we still have the place we picked up our minifridge marked on the map, and it's like on the other side of a large building from where the 17 starts. :3

@Leucrotta (wait, that's... some tiny college campus or something? Iunno. Whatever.)

@frostwolf There's some pretty good stuff in San Jose - some old haunts though I'm a little bad at figuring out how to get there through transit.

https://www.caltrain.com/ is the train to SF, and beyond. It's basically on the Peninsula but not east side.

@Leucrotta Oh we saw a Caltrain stop somewhere in San Jose, our VTA line connected! Also I think Milpitas connects with it, aaaallll the way over in south SF. That's like, as far as BART /goes/ (I bet it'd be super expensive to take BART to that connection).

So besides San Jose-SF (which BART is probably easier and cheaper for us), where else does it go?

@Leucrotta (*zooms out*
Oh WOW, Santa Clara is... a /ways/. o,,o Glad the 17 is an express bus... but if it's THAT long I hope it's not a "need to find someplace to stay overnight" kind of deal.)

@Leucrotta (We really wish BART didn't stop running at midnight. Since it does, we'd have to make sure to get back pretty early.)

@frostwolf https://www.caltrain.com/rider-information/transit-connections is a list of where it hooks up with other transit agencies. Diridon's the Amtrak station, so potentially you could hop Amtrak to as far away as LA or up here.

@Leucrotta !

[Money.]
:<

still though, could be worth the trip sometime!

I think Richmond connects with Amtrak as well, actually. Easier than dealing with VTA in the middle.

How often does Amtrak /run/, though? I bet any trip up there would have to be multiday, particularly if it's a "once a day" deal, and heh, we're nearly homeless we cannot afford hotels.

@Leucrotta (heyyy Caltrain website has dark mode. Take that BART, AC Transit.)

@frostwolf Hm. Santa Cruz has a youth hostel (https://www.hihostels.com/hostels/hi-santa-cruz/) and it's possible they'd be able to tell you more about the hostelling system. Amtrak should have a schedule on their site (https://www.amtrak.com/home) none of which really helps with the lack of money.

@Leucrotta Huh!

@Leucrotta hah, so I went and found this old thread, and

re Amtrak: apparently there are regional trains that go more often than once a day!

We were looking at how to get to Sacramento to pick up a CRT, and it turns out it'd take a couple hours on a train that comes every few hours IIRC. It'd cost fucking /$30/ though, just for /one way/. Holy oof.

Wonder how much it'd be to get down to Santa Cruz and stuff.

@Leucrotta update: here to Santa Cruz runs multiple times a day, takes around 2 and a half hours on the train, and costs $23 one-way! Still feels pretty damn expensive, but better than $30.

@frostwolf ALTERNATIVELY you can hop 51a. Even though that's very much inside the bay, it'll get you to Robert Crown Beach in Alameda or Alameda Beach (the two are next to each other)

@Leucrotta 51A?? Hah, we take that to get from Berkeley down to the lake when we're trying to save money! And also that's the bus we take to get to the game store!

I guess we go the direction that's /away/ from Fruitvale BART. :3

@Leucrotta ohh right Alameda! *facepaw* The game store's on Alameda island. Makes sense.

That'd be a Lot more convenient for beaching.

@Leucrotta Okay now I'm imagining you punching things by stabbing at them with your snoot.