Our trip to Santa Cruz and Monterey Bay, August 2005
Special extra-large images are at the bottom of the page, in case you want to print one out, or upload it to Kodak to order "real prints."
Just ask me if you want a high-res photo of anything below that I don't already have a large version of at bottom.. >> webservant@healinghearts.org
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Time to pack up the van, head south and west and find our first beach! Stayed the first night in the van (I had built beds for us). Then then next day find a nice beach, with park-like trails, summer houses, and historical statues. Tide was out so it was quiet.. Wonderful! Warm yet overcast so not hot at all. Love that smell. Many many deep breaths taken! |
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North Head Light House - our first one! Still in Washington, though barely! This first Light House was the THE perfect one, we went all the way to the top, absolutely gorgeous inside and view. All kinds of questions and answers for the keeper and his wife. What a salty seadog he was too! We could have stopped with this one and been perfectly happy! |
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The trek to the next Light House - Cape Disappointment Light House, was quite a trek! We weren't able to go inside, but we saw a huge ship coming in, and a guy inside the Light House had a huge scope that he was watching the ship with. Then we hit the bridge to Oregon! But I missed getting a shot of the sign "Welcome to Oregon" -bummer! |
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We toured the Cheese factory -always wanted to do that! - hit a few small towns, one with kittens in a bookstore, saw our first Sea Lions, and then a Wax Museum "GWEN watch out behind you! AAAHHH" |
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We made some new friends, toured an aquarium, laughed our butts off at some Sea Lions close up on the docks, hit Ripleys Believe it or Not (Gwen is in an infinite star chamber though it didn't come out well in the pic), and then drove by Yaquina Light House, and finally learned all about what a jetty is |
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I'd have to read back in my travel diary to remember what Light House this was, but it isn't close at hand at the moment.. We decided not to go in for a closer look, too tired out!. Sea Lion Caves were closed, so we kept going south south south on 101. I can't tell you how much fun we had! We were so tired out after every day! But nobody got crabby! |
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The Redwoods - we got here latish one day, so didn't stay too long, but enough to park and poke around a bit. I am a forest lover and would love to have just roamed around for hours in here. Then we found Elk, after numerous Elk crossing signs, the Golden Gate bridge came upon us suddenly around a corner -misty- and San Fran here we are! crazy drivers!! |
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San Fran and then dundundunDUN! SANTA CRUZ, our port of call. GWEN aren't you happy we made it we're really here!! She is SO happy.. Ahhh look at her sweet face... |
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This whole row is just scenes from the Boardwalk at Santa Cruz. We spent 4 days here. First day was overcast PERFECT because it was pleasant and warm -not hot. We saw a 50's band perform on the beach Friday night, they sang "Under the Boardwalk" hmm appropriate |
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The only scary ride we went on - this stuff freaks me out -heights yipes, but Gwen cannot stomach really fast rides, so she convinced me to go on this one. Do you see the gleeful look in her eyes in the first photo? She enjoys the ride and my fear... little stinker.... The last photo is a gentlemen we'd hoped to meet, having seen him in photos on the web.. YES! we got the photo of him! |
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Motel in Santa Cruz, Light House / Surfer Museum, Santa Cruz beach, Sea Lions, and then the wonderful Arboretum! The first pic of Gwen watching the loudest humming bird in the world, this little guy had a song to sing and sang it for a looong time, SO cute!! |
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We had a lot of fun watching, and then chasing, the quail and listening to them talk to each other about it. Quail, humming birds, bunnies, lizards, jays, and other strange birds... we had so much fun in these gardens.. binoculars were handy for sure. Could have spent a few days here.. Back to Santa Cruz at dusk. We drove onto the huge Wharf and ate and shopped took a photo of the Boardwalk being lit up. I hadn't taken any pics of the Wharf, or of downtown when we went shopping, but we had the most delicious smoked salmon quesedias in this little cafe, oh oh oh we talked about them for days.. and saw so many cute little trinkets, and bought a few things too. Bonafide tourists! |
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Inside the end building on the Boardwalk is a big animated pirate scene complete with sound effects and talking pirates.. I only got a picture of one of them.. and a goofy golf course and huge arcade and laser-tag area below and more... We went down to Capitola to see a sand castle contest -not much there, then headed to Monterey - the place I had really wanted to go to. |
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Monterey Bay, Cannery Row, our next Motel room, and the Huge Aquarium. I am SO happy!!!! I just really wanted to see a really big aquarium and here we are!! We had got here late, the lights are turning on as you can see down the road of Cannery Row, so we hit the hay and came to the Aquarium first thing in the morning |
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It's just hard to tell in all of these photos how absolutely gigantic these glass walls are.. they had this bass music playing, just really deep string music, I could have just sat and listened for hours, watching the fish, but Gwen wanted to go explore, so we went went went. The shore bird exhibit was cute, and they were doing pretty funny things.. |
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We stayed at the aquarium all day long, then nearer the end of the day went down all of the Cannery Row shops... our feet - our poor feet, but hey Gwen's still smiling, so we are just so glad to have time for fun!!! |
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Gorgeous stuff in the aquarium gift shops, such as these glass jellyfish.. The second pic is really big, you may not want to load it, Gwen wanted a few photos of this interesting old house, we peeked at a Light House but didn't care to go see it, and we head back over the Golden Gate on our way home. It was sunny this time. |
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Strangely trimmed bushes. I pulled off the road one afternoon into a nice trail-head park, to take a nap, and awoke to an odd tapping noise. This seagull was trying to attack his reflection in the hub caps of the vehicle next to us. It was pretty funny, he tried for a long time... walking to and fro.. Then comes a pic of the view where I had napped. Then Bandon. We stopped there to get art supplies, and the Art store owner told us of a hidden beach. It is the most photographed beach in the US. It has these HUGE boulders right on the beach. We played a long time here, chasing each other in the sand... playing keep-away.. it was very nice. Then we sat in the car and watched the sunset as it looked to be a nice one. It is a nice way to close our photo gallery of our trip. Thank you for sharing it with us |
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SPECIAL SHOTS - REPEATS OF ABOVE BUT IN A LARGER SIZE, OR ...?
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Larger versions in case you want to get better resolution for prints or something.
or it's something Gwen or I wanted to have a larger version of... like the bird.. |
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