Adventures in Santa Cruz

Our weekend without plans quickly turned into a fun-filled few days. Friday night we started the weekend off with a surprise birthday party for a friend. It was a such a great night! They rented a space complete with shuffle board, beer pong, a full bar, and snacks with the Giants game and some classic 90's movies playing in the background. 

Saturday was a little more low key. Andrew actually had to work in the morning, and then went surfing in the afternoon, so I went to the gym, shopped and cleaned a little. That evening we went out to see a friend perform for Opera On Tap here in the city. It was really fun! The venue was really intimate, and for a bar the acoustics were surprisingly good. It was a fun night out. I kept thinking about how many great events there are in this city that I have yet to discover! I'd recommend it to any locals who are looking for something different to do! 

Sunday morning we were up early for a day trip to Santa Cruz! We've been talking about going for a while now, and decided it would be a perfect day. 

We started out at Pleasure Point because Andrew was hoping to surf. But it was pretty crowded and the surf wasn't that good, so we decided to just walk around and take in the sights for bit. We were able to see some sea lions hanging out in the kelp beds and watched the surfers before we hit up the local surf shops. 

The fog started to burn off and it turned into a really nice day. We drove over to the Patagonia Outlet to see if we could find anything we couldn't live without. Andrew ended up with a shirt and a water bottle. But I resisted temptation. Next we grabbed a quick lunch and then made our way down to The Boardwalk. 

We just walked around The Boardwalk for a little bit, mostly because we wanted to ride the Giant Dipper! We grabbed our tickets and jumped in line. I love rickety, old roller coasters. It was a blast!  

Once we had enough of the crowds on the Boardwalk, we decided to head back towards the car and check out one more surf spot. We parked at Lighthouse Field State Beach, and walked over to the cliffs to watch the locals surf. There is also a small surfing museum in the lighthouse building that we walked through. It was pretty interesting to see photos from decades past and how surfing has evolved. 

We just watched the movie Chasing Mavericks last week, so it was fun to be there and remember the scenes of surfing here in the movie. The surf was actually really good so we stood and watched for probably an hour. I think Andrew was bummed he didn't surf. But it was crowded and already late, so he decided not to. 

We saw a few sea otters, even a mom and her pup! There was a volunteer there who pointed it out to us and let us use his spotting scope to get a good view. 

It was a great day, and the highlight of my weekend. It was so nice just to do a spontaneous road trip with Andrew. We didn't really have a plan, but both enjoyed getting out of the fog and spending time on the coast. We're already planning our next trip, when I plan to spend the majority of my time on the beach watching Andrew surf.

I hope you all had an amazing weekend too! Is it bad I'm already looking forward to the weekend?

xoxo,

Theresa