Oh, good. What was I thinking? AmTrak only goes from Bakersfield to Fresno. They have a bus from L.A. to Bakersfield. Now, wouldn't that be fun? A stinking, smelly bus with people who got on at the 3rd world station in Los Angeles. John Rocker, do you have anything to say about that?
My mother and I rode the Amtrak bus from Bakersfield to Los Angeles about 12 years ago. We then took Amtrak to Alburque where I rented a car and drove to visit relatives in Texas.
The bus was not too bad but I would have preferred to have taken the train from Bakersfield to LA. The valley trains are pretty good. They run Bakersfield to the bay area. There are several train a day.
Have you checked flying into Fresno? Unless you can get a pretty good deal, it can be more expensive than flying to New York.
Also, there may be others coming up from LA; maybe we can check on ride sharing.