Day 5

Today we headed to Santa Cruz. This was a great town!! I was really convinced there was not much to do here but M proved me wrong. There were so many things to do, we actually went back again.

We started the day by parking (for free!) in a municipal lot down by UC Santa Cruz. It felt sort of like Church Street in Burlington with a focus on surfing and not snowboarding. There were some interesting street gentlemen...all very hairy and bearded, some walking, some riding bikes, several playing a flute. It was...interesting. We walked from downtown to the wharf, walked to the end and saw sea lions basking down below the pier. From there we headed to the Boardwalk which was much bigger and more extravagant than I thought. It seemed to go on forever, it was the kind of thing I really didn't think existed anymore. Rides for older kids, rides for little kids, tons of food, arcades, carnival games. There was so much to do that none of the rides were very long. This was right along the beach and there were soccer fields and volleyball courts on the sand and tons of people playing. There was also a stage set up, every Friday night a band plays live on the beach.

We headed back to the hotel and quickly got bored of sitting there, so we decided to see what was north of Santa Cruz to Davenport (very very small town, possibly only consisting of one street). Along the way, there were random turn outs with cars parked but no people. Finally we figured out that these were turn offs for beaches, really felt like only the locals would know about these and they wouldn't be over run with people. Not that any of them were, there were so many beaches all over the place none was overly packed. We pulled over and found a quasi path, not paved, just rocks and climbed over this dune to reveal one of the most stunning views ever. I felt like I was in Star Wars or on the Moon. It looked like a giant crater, with huge crashing waves and a cove. We stumbled down the other side of the dune, bad day for wearing flip flops. It was super super windy and cold down there and only a smattering of people. M says to me,'Um, I think this might be a nude beach.' I said, 'Well what gives you that idea'. He tells me to turn around and I see a nude man walking around in the cove area and someone else lying on the sand with nary a stitch on. We later found out that this is a sanctioned nude beach, we weren't sure at the time if it was something impromptu. We stayed for awhile then skedaddled up the hill.

From there, we turned off into another state park beach called New Brighton. This was more of a family beach area. We read and relaxed for awhile and then decided to mosey on back to the hotel for some dinner and relaxing.