Comfort Inn Santa Cruz

We got a really early start this morning, aiming for breakfast in the rich town of Carmel-by-the-Sea. It is clearly a rich town and the main street is lined with cute little Hansel-and-Gretel styled houses. It is very similar to the town of Colmar in France, except that these houses on the main street house stores like Tiffany's.

However, all that money must mean that people have later starts. We just could not find any ...

... facilities, i.e. free, clean, unlimited-hot-water showers, we noticed during the course of the 3 nights, that many homeless people come here to have a shower. They are not your average streetbums, but mostly homeless people who live in their car (not very different from us, I guess!). After witnessing this stream of people for 3 nights and 3 mornings, I was ready to get out of there!

Left Mariposa and headed across California to the coast. travelled all day across such flat landscape, very agriculteral areas and very poor We passed some garlic fields that nearly made Steve throw up smelled yummy to me !!!!!
Getting tired as night fell so pulled off the freeway into a strange little town called Moss Landing.Seemed very deserted but we found a welcoming B & B right on the beach. The place was so quaint decked out in nautical ...

... find that I have to 'perform' for people watching, which gets in the way of my personal enjoyment of the movement. The other goals involved tricks - I wanted to nail the chest roll (flicking the hoop from one hand to another in a roll across the chest) and pizza toss (throwing the hoop from your waist horizontally upwards and catching on your waist again) . And the final goal was to connect with people, to share, to learn and to make friends.
The first ...

... came in holding incense and conveying her love for Cait's new Frye boots. When we awoke in the morning, more like afternoon...we all agreed to wander into the city, to get some lunch and check out the spunky retro stores around the area. Chris took us to this great burrito place where they had a salsa bar one could only dream of. I give the restaurant props because it had quite possibly some of the strangest mixes to Mexican that I had ever heard of, but the food in ...

... lots of fun. One thing we did forget was to bring a flashlight to get us back to the parking lot!! It was quite a trek with all our stuff but we made it. Saturday Our final day in Santa Cruz.... This morning we headed on down the coast. We passed Monterey, Seaside and many other oceanfront towns. We took the 17 mile Drive which travels around the Pebble Beach properties. We didn't see Tiger out practicing though! The drive has 21 ...

... was drainage. Decide to hunt for a little bit to eat before heading into the stadium for a tour. Find a hotdog shop on the corner and think we have scored. If it was a game day, no doubt we would have. No games today. No dogs. No luck. Not much else around for three hungry Aussies who have to be back at the stadium in 15 minutes. At times like these (and really not many other times), you have to be thankful for Maccas. And we were. We all the drill down pat now - Zac ...

... much of anything. Mom joked that she felt like she was sending me off to prison, especially since in Quito, among other places I will be visiting, I should not walk around anywhere after it gets dark at 6:30 (so my guidebook and other people have claimed...). Getting to San Jose airport and checking in was a breeze. We were very early for my 8:40 pm flight, so we sat outside security for about an hour. I wanted to take advantage of our last moments together, although I must say ...

... activity in which to engage. ****! I just realized that I do not yet have a seat assignment and we're scheduled to board in 5 minutes. As I have been sitting here philosophizing, a big old queue has developed at the counter. Time to get busy... So my delay in approaching the ticket counter resulted in my being assigned a seat *way* in the back of the plane. I failed to be assigned a window seat for the second time today, but I was given an aisle. I don't know why they ...

... else due to the X-games being held at Venice that weekend. Instead we found some accommodation in Hollywood at a Travelodge - always reliable. We had a great time in LA seeing the sights of Rodeo Drive, the Hollywood sign, the Regent Beverley Wilshire (for all the Pretty woman fans), Venice Beach and a trip to Universal Studios with Simon and Jo - Mary's Uni friend from Chester who happened to be out in America at the same time. The trip to Universal was great day out and ...