Santa Cruzin' Again

Forgive me, we’ve been camping at the beach in Santa Cruz for the last couple of days with no internet access, so keeping up on the blog has been difficult. I’m sure you’re feeling very sorry for me now.

We take great delight in not doing what everyone else is doing, going to the city on the weekend when everybody heads for the mountains, going to the beach in December when everybody is in a Christmas frenzy. No fog, no crowds, warm enough to wear shorts and search for sea glass barefoot in the surf. You just have to time it around the incoming storms. There’s suppose to be one heading this way tomorrow evening, so we’ll be off for home around noon.

We intended to do our Christmas shopping here. You know, they have all these artsy handmade gifts, but it hasn’t worked out that way. It’s too enticing to stay at the beach. We don’t have much energy for leaving, spending our time watching the California brown pelicans kamikaze into the sea for fish, strolling along the beach, reading. Every once in awhile dolphin, seals, and otters swim by.

We do roust ourselves to leave camp in the evening to get dinner and go “see” live music. This area, home of kpig radio, is known for is excellent musical diversity. Driving out to Felton two nights in a row, we had to see Tom Russell, a brilliant folk singer, on Tuesday and Big Sandy and the Fly Right Boys, old fashioned rockabilly, last night. Both were good fun.

Also during this trip I found out that gingersnaps, macaroons, ham and cheese croissants from Gayle’s Bakery and Deli in Capitola are too tempting to resist.

Last night I got a few images in the waning light before the sunset. It happened so quickly, all of a sudden the light was gone. I’ll try to start earlier tonight.

The Santa Cruz area has three state campgrounds near the beach. Sunsets is the furthest south, no ocean views from camp, but a prime place for finding whole sand dollars and watching the sunset (hence, the name). New Brighton is near Aptos, wonderful cliff views of Monterey Bay from the prime spots. For the first time, we are staying at Seacliff, right on the water. They only allow fully self-contained RVs and trailers, but it’s literally on the beach. If you can work it out, plan for a winter beach vacation this year.

Now I’ll have to head up to the pub, Britannia Arms in Aptos, order up a hard cider, and use their hot spot link to send this out to all of you.