Santa Cruz

At lunch @ Capitola.


It was a bit hazy / foggy that morning… gave perfect light for portraits, but also gave some great weird sunburns on only half my body, haha (right arm, knee and foot were way more burned than my left side, haha.

I have plenty more pictures to edit and upload / share, but not the time to do it at the moment. I wanted to at least get started.

We (Kate, Mar, Steve, Dan and myself) had a blast in Cali over the weekend. I packed all 5 of us into Steve’s Rogue Thursday morning and drove all day to get there. I think we’d all love to still be there, and realistically would have loved even just one more day to enjoy that slice of heaven on earth, but it was awesome while it lasted. Friday started with everyone sleeping in (except me… I sorta was wide awake at 7am, but then crashed again once everyone else woke up, haha), followed by scoping out a beach to chill at (ended up at Capitola which was awesome), followed by hitting the Mystery Spot (way wacky!), then the boardwalk at Santa Cruz (a blast riding rides there and just enjoying the atmosphere), followed by strolling through downtown Santa Cruz to grab some Pizza My Heart for dinner before heading back to our hotel in Cupertino to crash for the night. What an awesome day. Packed, but still relaxed, never hurried. And have I mentioned how PERFECT the weather was? 70s and mostly sunny. So nice.

The next day was even more laid back– lazy morning of swimming, hot tubbing, reading, etc., after which we grabbed lunch and headed mid-afternoon over to the Winchester Mystery House… more weird stuff to see. After a number of hours there we wound up at the Elephant Bar for dinner, which turned out to be pretty good stuff.

All in all it was a blast. Fun activities, gorgeous scenery, perfect weather, and we totally enjoyed each others company– tons of great laughs (and hopefully some great pics, even). It’s amazing how a vacation can just take a load off you– mentally, emotionally, etc. I needed this. We probably all did.

Stay tuned for more pics and in-depth descriptions of some of the activities… they need to be recorded for sure! (like uh, Steve looking shorter / smaller than Dan at the Mystery Spot. So hilarious!)