Fun day trip to Santa Rosa on the SMART train

Dear Husband has been on a tear organizing lots of fun activities for us. So it should have been no surprise that he planned a fun day trip to Santa Rosa via the SMART train. And of course, good food was involved as well!

We drove from Moraga to Larkspur to pick up the train at the end of the line for our day trip to Santa Rosa. We had a few minutes to spare, so we stopped into the Marin Country Mart for some provisions- bread from Rustic Bakery and donuts from Johnny’s Donuts. These two places are becoming a regular stop on any trip to Marin 🙂

We walked across the parking lot to the SMART train station. The Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit was started in 2012 and began service in 2017 (which frankly seems very fast for Bay Area construction projects!) The line starts in Larkspur, where we picked it up. And eventually it will go all the way to Healdsburg, Windsor and Cloverdale.

A few things to note about the train:

• It’s very bike-friendly. They are very welcoming to bikes and as we rode along, I could see lots of bike trails along the route. So that’s another fun day trip for the future…
• Bring your Clipper Card- because I didn’t know we could use ours, I left mine at home. And had to buy two new Clipper Cards at the station ($3 each)
• The train is very clean and comfortable. There’s a cute little bar-car area which wasn’t open when we were abroad on a Saturday. I imagine it’s open for commuters in the mornings and evenings.

Wandering around Santa Rosa

The train drops you off right in downtown, which is perfect for a day trip to Santa Rosa without a car.

Downtown Santa Rosa is very walkable, and there’s enough to do for a few hours. There’s also a mall nearby (Dear Husband exclaimed “malls are still a thing??” in disbelief LOL!) if you need to stop at Forever 21 for some crazy reason 🙂 We headed straight to our lunch destination, The Naked Pig. Dear Husband had found it through an article in San Francisco Magazine years ago. Yes, he keeps files of ideas for just such an occasion- and he’s adorable!

That article doesn’t seem to be available online, so he happily passed on his paper copy to the owner, Dalia Martinez, who was delighted to tell us about how excited she was to be featured all those years ago. (I did stumble across this article…)

It’s a stylish, locavore restaurant with a great brunch menu. We sat in the window and ate eggs, salad, and a fantastic biscuit with local honey.

After brunch, we decided to wander around downtown during our day trip to Santa Rosa. We had a couple of hours until the next train left for Larkspur, so we stopped in a pawn shop (a surprising amount of power tools were available- is that the norm at a pawn shop?) There were also a few people lined up to get their items appraised. It made me sad to see people having to give up their jewelry.

A more cheerful stop was at Corrick’s, which has been in various locations in downtown for over 100 years. It’s one of those old fashioned “department stores” that you don’t see much these days. They have a large stationery department, including some fountain pens– Visconti and Cross. There was a modest selection of fountain pen ink, some Clairfontaine notebooks (a solid choice!), and lots of greeting cards.

I also liked the Sonoma postcard selection, but I am trying to pare back my postcard exchanging-it’s getting quite expensive!

The most puzzling area for me was the large selection of crystal, serving wear, china- all things that are typically bought on a wedding registry. I’m not questioning the items- they had a nice selection of Simon Pearce, one of my favorites. But are people still registering for this stuff? And are they registering for it at a small store in Santa Rosa? I had lots of questions but didn’t want to be rude by asking them!

The sun was out in full force by 1:30pm, so I was glad I had worn layers. There were a fair amount of people out, enjoying the sun at the restaurants and coffee shops in the area.

We headed back to the train station a few minutes before the scheduled departure. The train was right on time, and actually quite full. Most people seemed to be heading to Larkspur as we were. We both snoozed a little, after a day trip to Santa Rosa that included sun, donuts, and a delicious lunch!

Marin Country Mart, 2257 Larkspur Landing Cir, Larkspur, CA 94939

SMART Larkspur station, 600 Larkspur Landing Cir, Larkspur, CA 94939

SMART Santa Rosa downtown station, 7 4th St, Santa Rosa, CA 95401

The Naked Pig, 640 5th St, Santa Rosa, CA 95401

Corrick’s, 637 4th St, Santa Rosa, CA 95404