Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 22:54:25 -0800
Reply-To: alan sinclair <anadem@GMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: alan sinclair <anadem@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: California Dreamin - Trip up/down coast, need advice
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Hi Phil, Suzanne, Sage & Star
The part of the coast I know is round Santa Cruz where we live. It's
a fairly small town (~50,000) with a Univ of Calif site, which gives
it extra life. Lots of Vanagons & Westys too.
There are many nice small beaches with rock pools (though maybe 1 1/4
is a bit too small to enjoy starfish and anemones). If those appeal
to you I can tell as much detail as you like -- or you can find many
north from here towards SF. Beaches south of Santa Cruz are generally
more open sand, north of SC are prettier and enclosed by cliffs.
Monterey Bay Aquarium is very amazing if you can take half a day.
Watching the giant tanks with the kelp swaying in the current is
mesmerizing. And the jellyfish exhibits ... no, all the exhibits are
cool!
I'd suggest you plan on not eating in that area as it's become very
high-price-ticky-tacky all round it -- eat elsewhere in Monterey than
Fisherman's Wharf. But food at the Aquarium iself is ok, though.
Santa Cruz has the Boardwalk, but unless you're really into roller
coasters it's probably not worth a visit. There's a wharf nearby with
some restaurants, from moderate prices up. You should probably drive
along the wharf to give your westy a taste of sea air -- it's free if
you're there under 30 minutes.
In Santa Cruz town center there are many good eateries:
A low-cost eating place we go to quite often has Ceylon-style
vegetarian food -- the Asian Rose.
Jack's has the best hamburger and fries ever.
Palomar is less cheap (but not expensive) Mexican food.
Many varieties of Great hot chocolate at Chocolat, also wine, soup and
sandwiches there.
Zoccoli's is a good deli for sandwiches.
Proper bagels from The Bagelry -- we go there often for an onion bagel
with egg-salad and 'pink flamingo' which is a lox/cream-cheese mix
(these are real bagels, not like Noah's)
There are some very fine expensive places too -- Cafe Bella Napoli
makes my mouth water to think of it, if you have a birthday to
celebrate or some other excuse!
Also a number of very good organic / healthy-food stores -- New Leaf
(several branches but a little pricy), Staff of Life, Shoppers Corner,
The Food Bin. The downtown farmer's market is on Wednesday, or ther
are others on Friday and Saturday different places.
You should stop by the Santa Cruz Lighthouse and watch the surfing on
Steamer Lane. Monarch butterflies roost in the Eucalyptus trees at
Lighthouse Field for the winter - twenty thousand or more. They
migrate here from as far north as Canada, and also roost at Natural
Bridges State Park on the western edge of Santa Cruz (which has a nice
beach too, though the natural bridge fell down years ago)
There's a lovely drive through redwoods up highway 9 from Santa Cruz
to Felton (about 7 miles) -- Henry Cowell Redwoods SP in Felton has
some of the biggest trees, including one with a small room inside
where Captain (oops, forgotten his name -- one of the first exploreres
here) stayed over a winter, according to legend -- take a flashlight
to go inside the tree (there's a little shelf cut into the tree
inside). There's camping at Henry Cowell, but I haven't used it.
<http://www.pelicannetwork.net/santacruzredwoods.html>
I have stayed in the Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park in Big Sur --
nice. Not much else in Big Sur though except hiking. (There's a
great hike to a natural hot spring -- Sykes -- where the hot water
bubbles out from rocks under a redwood tree, but it's about twelve
miles of extreme up-and-down)
<http://www.pelicannetwork.net/bigsur.campgrounds.htm#Pfeiffer%20Big%20Sur%20State%20Park>
When you're along the coast keep an eye open for migrating grey whales
-- you can take a boat trip, if you have a strong stomach, from many
places. They go down to Baja to calve, and you see their spouts when
they come up to breathe.
Also, there will be a few elephant seals at Ano Nuevo, about 25 miles
north of Santa Cruz on Hwy 1, though their peak seaon isn't really
till February/March.
So, sounds like you'll need at least half your time round here :-)
More details as you wish...
Alan
