Freakin’ big trees

A few relaxing days in Santa Cruz to catch some hippy culture before we head on to San Fransisco.  Santa Cruz boasts California’s oldest boardwalk with a 107 yr old carousel and hundreds of other novelty rides and stores, all weird and wonderful. This is a the view from our balcony - lucky for us it’s off season and most of the rides aren’t open otherwise it would be pretty noisy.

Again, the weather is perfect! I happened to pack one summer dress that I never thought I would wear but Ive been living in it. We walked along the boardwalk and the pier - it’s really lovely but there are a lot of homeless people panhandling.  We head downtown in search of dinner and it is even worse - most of the homeless would be in their 30’s to 50’s and we are constantly asked for money or cigarettes.......and nearly all of them have a dog.

We came across a local brewery where you leave your credit card at reception and they give you a wrist tag so that you can pour your own beer.  There were about 40 to choose from - you can order 3 different sizes and it automatically pours the exact amount!

We want to take advantage of the bike while we can so the next day we head off into the mountains to check out the Redwood Forest.  The weather is again beautiful and the ride was exhilarating- we are amazed at just how fantastic all of the roads are even in the country areas.

As we are not equipped for hiking (not my bag anyway) we just did a 1 mile trail to check out these freakin big trees

Even Grover was impressed........ 

Tomorrow it’s the last day on the bike and so we will head off early to the final leg of this journey - San Fransisco.