California Vacation 2008: Day 6

Monday was transition day, as we broke down our home (read: "tent") from the past three nights and made our way to the comfort of a hotel. Trevor and I jumped in the car and drove a few miles down to Santa Cruz to scope out on the internet a reasonably-priced hotel that would provide us with good accommodations and a fairly short drive to San Francisco International. This actually took longer than we thought, as we first had to find a wi-fi connection (apparently both McDonald's in town had never heard of the internet), and then pour through the many choices available. Finally we settled on a Days Inn in Redwood City. After heading back to the campsite and eating lunch, we drove the long, but scenic, way into town, got settled in and cleaned up (that first shower back always feels great!) and then turned right back around and headed back to Santa Cruz to meet the family for "Boardwalk Night".



The Santa Cruz Boardwalk is an amusement park built in the early 1900's. Of course, there have been lots of improvements made to it since then, but certain elements--like the carousel and the wooden roller coaster, for instance--still remain. It's really a pretty cool place, and Monday nights in summer are specially-priced events, where certain food items as well as attraction tickets can be bought for 75 cents. Because neither Becki or I wanted to ride the rides, we helped watch the kids, stuffed ourselves with boardwalk food, and tried to avoid the chilling winds off the ocean. Definitely a fun evening, but I had a bit of trouble staying awake on the drive back. The winding mountain roads didn't help that, either.


Final day of vacation coverage coming up soon...