Remind me why I moved from CA

I can usually forget just how nice CA is. I mean, I'm from Stockton. Not the bay area. Stockton can get 105 degrees easy in the summer. I know the bay area is completely different. Well, I was reminded of that during my trip. As soon as I got off the plane, I could feel how cool the air was. I got in to San Jose Wednesday night and picked up my rental car. I only paid for an 'economy' but got a PT Cruiser. I was slightly excited about this since I really like the body styling but had never driven one. Ugh, what a crappy car. It only got 21 miles/gal, the inside was built for someone taller than me, and the stereo system sucked. I'd brought several mix CDs with me since I knew I'd be driving a lot and could really tell how crappy the stereo was. So, no PT Cruiser in the future for me! The drive from San Jose to my Nana's house in Gilroy was fine. For once, I didn't get lost in Gilroy.

On Thursday my nana let me sleep in till 10 which I really needed. By the time I got up and going to Santa Cruz it was 11. I told her I'd be meeting friends in Santa Cruz so she wouldn't worry about me traveling by myself. Heh. Bad granddaughter. I wanted to take the most scenic route possible, so I took Hecker Pass (152) to Hwy 1. Even though I've been to Gilroy countless times and have been on Hecker Pass, I've never DRIVEN Hecker Pass. Oh my god, it was so much fun. For 15 minutes straight it's one turn after another. As soon as you get out of one turn, you're going into the next, downhill and uphill. I almost turned around just so I could do it again! Luckily for a Thursday midmorning there weren't that many cars on the road and I didn't have to worry about getting stuck behind some asshole that didn't know how to drive mountain roads. Anyways, I made it to Santa Cruz with no incidents. And, I must say, I did not get lost at anytime during this trip even though everywhere I went I had not driven to before. Go me and my map-reading skills!!

Look how curvy it is!! I miss it already.

So I arrived at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk without incident. I hadn't been there since our Senior Ditch Day in '95. I was afraid it had become run-down or unsafe, but they've really taken care of it. I wandered the Boardwalk for a couple hours, played a couple of games (won a little crab for my nephew!) and rode the Giant Dipper and the Carousel. The Giant Dipper is a 1924 wooden roller coaster and damn, I'd forgotten how rough a ride that is! You can see the red and white coaster in this pic. Look how beautiful the sky is! Not a cloud in the sky. For a Thursday the Boardwalk wasn't too busy.

The Carousel is from 1911 and as cool as I remember.

Now you may be asking, what's so frickin cool about a carousel? Well, my friend, with this carousel you can grab metal rings and try to throw them into the clown's mouth! You can see in the picture the metal bar that comes out with the rings at the end. I was afraid they'd stopped doing it, cause c'mon, EVERYONE steals at least one ring (**cough**and sometimes gets in trouble with security for throwing them onto the roofs of buildings from the overhead sky glider. Andrea was a bad influence in '95!...and yes I still have one ring!**cough)

After fucking around on the boardwalk for a few hours I went back to my car and got my beach stuff. Since I was alone I asked a nice lady that was reading a book to watch my stuff while I went down to the water. Holy fuck, has the Pacific always been ice cold???? I frolicked on the shore for a couple hours and got a great tan. When I got back to my towel the people that had been in front of me left, and I started playing around with pictures. I thought this one was fun.

As far as amusement parks go, I really like Santa Cruz. It's free to get in so you can just have food or go to the beach without paying for the rides. If you do want to do rides you can either get a day pass or just pay for the individual rides you want. I really like that setup.