[Day 2: The Day that starts with Strawberry Fields and ends with a Failed Quest for Mustard]
The day starts with all of us in an unintentional braiding chain (everything from french to fishtail) to combat convertible wind effects. We then discover that the reason it felt like we drove to the middle of nowhere is because the road to our beach house is in fact surrounded by strawberry fields. Rows and rows of red little strawberries peeking out of the green, stretching out into the horizon. They greet us every time we go in and out of Watsonville.
We start the morning at this breakfast place called Gayle’s Bakery in Capitola. There we are treated to a cashier who shares her life experience from New York, the best organized breakfast rush I’ve ever seen, a giant bedazzled statue of a raspberry tart adorning the top of the fire place, and some really yummy food.
Modest appearance, but excellent taste. And, yeah, when I’m on vacation I spring for the Pelligrino.
From there we take in the beach. My friends explore the colored condos further up while I hang back and sketch the scenery a little.
The beach was foggy, but it was a nice way to start the day. This, of course, is not the sketch, but the subject there of.
I loved this lone, little, purple flower.
After that it’s on to our next stop: the Santa Cruz boardwalk.
The fog cleared up and we had a beautiful day in Santa Cruz.
We definitely had fun taking in the board walk and all the rides it had to offer. My favorite ride was probably the roller coaster (so. much. fun.). Somehow my friends also got me on the sky glider ride (I am not really a fan of heights at all and for some reason these little sky rides scare me more than any roller coaster could, haha).
We also decided to swim even though the water was juuust a little bit chilly.
After the boardwalk we went to one of my favorite beaches on the trip – Shark Tooth Beach in Davenport.
This beach was a little hidden. You had to pull over on the side of the road, walk down a hill, and then climb down a rocky path to the beach (quite the feat when you are wearing flimsy little beach shoes).
We explored a little cave on the side of the beach.
We grabbed a bite at the Surfrider Cafe (which had amazing garlic-parm fries that I intend to replicate), and then headed over to the Mystery Spot (Just watch if you haven’t heard of this place, now you’ll see their bumper stickers evvverywhere).
The Mystery Spot is a “gravitational anomaly” in the redwoods. They have a little house where things roll backwards and everyone feels like they are leaning when they should be standing up. There are potentially many things to blame for this: holes in the ozone layer, mysterious fault lines, etc. But I really think it’s best to go with aliens. It was a fun (if dizzy) little detour on our beach tours.
The tilt of the place made walking around interesting… haha. It also made sliding down the rail fun.
We ended the day at the Natural Bridges state park. I wish I could end every day with a view like this.
Courtney Imagining.
Afterwards we loaded up on groceries for our picnic plans the next day. But we were so tired we really were little zombie shoppers (leading us to forget the mustard, which somehow became the most important and talked about ingredient of them all – until you know, we went to the store the next day, and got some mustard).
I promise the final post is coming soon: Day 3: [The Day where we Drive, Drive, Drive]
Currently: watching Portlandia and making Kale chips (I still need to perfect this a little).
Bedelia 