Day 2: Santa Cruz

Well I've already been slacking so much. I know, I'm the worst. I've spent the majority of today in bed so now that the day is practically over I've rationalized that I have no excuse not to blog. That was a double negative. My apologies. Like I said, I'm the worst.

So we last left off in San Francisco. Technically, Santa Cruz. Day two of our adventure started with a decent (and free) breakfast at the hotel. After almost driving the wrong way down a one way street, we headed to a grocery store and picked up some water and granola bars. If you're planning a road trip I highly recommend this. They serve as a backup breakfast if your hotel doesn't offer one or it sucks, and also double as emergency snacks while stuck in traffic/lost/desperate not to spend any more money. Plus water is a necessity. We kept ours in the hotel fridges until checkout so they were nice and chilled by the time we got in the car. Wow, I just wrote a whole paragraph on granola bars. It's safe to say I'm really going places in life. Thumbs up.

We headed over to Natural Bridges State Park which is a gorgeous nature reserve, park and beach all wrapped up in one. Even though it was May, being in northern Cali meant it was still relatively chilly out. And windy. I made the mistake of wearing a skirt and definitely mooned quite a few people. Regardless, the park was gorgeous. There are, you guessed it, natural bridges made of rock. The beach was crowded that day so it was difficult to capture a photo without swarms of tourists, but I did my best.

The cliffside homes were breathtaking, and we watched one homeowner eat breakfast on his gorgeous outdoor patio overlooking the Pacific. To say we were jealous is the understatement of the year.

Hi, let me live with you.

It was much too cold for us so we had a mini photo shoot and tried out best not to fall climbing back down the baby cliffs (pictured above). Don't worry, though we really are quite unathletic we totally held our own. And trust me, those innocent looking rocks were a lot harder to climb than they look.

You don't even want to know how long I waited for that wave.

(hint: too long)

So hipster. Much flower. Many nature.

We then headed to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk (about a 10 minute drive) to grab lunch and continue sightseeing. We sat down at The Picnic Basket with our delicious salads and house-made sodas. The restaurant was busy (a good sign) with quick, friendly service and healthy food. 

We ended up wandering around the boardwalk in and out of little beach shops, then headed down to the beach itself. Oh and we happened across a swarm of sea lions. 

They were everywhere. There were steps down to a lower level of the boardwalk and we got so close to some sleeping sea lions I could practically touch them. Proof:

Let me pet you

The boardwalk featuring some majestic birds

The water was freezing but there were still loads of people swimming, tanning and playing volleyball. We popped into the arcade but found it far too touristy and cheesy. By this time we were coming up on rush hour, so we decided to head to our hotel in Monterey to avoid some traffic. It was about an hour long trip and to our dismay, quite a bit of the PCH was inland, so our drive was a tad uneventful. We arrived at our hotel, a Travelodge, which ended up being one of our favorites of the trip. Since we had been out all day, and were still adjusting to the time change, we decided to stay in for the night with movies and girl talk.

Next: Monterey (day 1)

XO,

Casey