cruzin

I am writing tonight from somewhere....near Joshua Tree National Park, off of I-10. We are at an "RV Resort", whatever that means I am not sure, except I think this is a place lots of retired folks come to for the winter in their RVs to escape the coldness where they live the rest of the year.... It is not extremely warm here right now though. Most of the drive today was spent driving about 45 mph through rain that was coming down so hard it was very difficult to see the cars around us. I'm sure you have heard that CA is getting hit real hard with this crazy storm, the coastal regions are getting lots of rain and the Sierra Nevada are getting lots of snow. We decided to take a southern route to avoid any encounters with snow....I've had enough of that this winter, bring on the warmth!

So, to backtrack a bit, I haven't written in some time now. We left Newberry Springs and drove to Santa Cruz, where we met up with our friend, Ryan, who first introduced James and I in Prescott in 2005. We had dinner with him right on the Harbor, got to see the boats that were sunken in the Tsunami wave that came into the Santa Cruz coastline- 5 boats that looked pretty well trashed. The news reported over 5 million dollars in damage to the harbor there, but the 5 boats we saw were the only damage that was apparent. We spent our first night in Santa Cruz in Ryan's studio apartment next to the beach. The next morning we went down to the beach for a couple of hours. Parula was completely amazed by the power of the waves and both kids had a great time playing with the kelp and driftwood on the sand. We drove around a bit, up into the redwoods to Bonny Doon, past the driveway to the house I lived at the summer I was in Santa Cruz (3960 Empire Grade) and down to the UCSC campus to have lunch with Faye, my mom's friend from college, and her 95 year old father. We ate in the dining hall, and Faye told us afterwards that we should stay in her house in her room as she would be leaving early the next morning for the week to go back east to Massachussetts. It was a hard offer to pass up, so we gladly accepted and went on with the rest of our day. We went back to the beach we went to in the morning, near Ryan's apartment. The dogs played with sticks in the sand, James ventured at getting Pia into the waves, although there was a slight mishap which involved Pia getting stabbed by a stick in her mouth as she was pushed by a wave and into River, so we had to take her to an animal hospital nearby to get repaired, as her skin was torn open and flesh oozing out. She is healing nicely now, but has a square shaved out of her fur in her side which looks rather ridiculous.

Anyway, we stayed in Santa Cruz until Saturday, when it started raining hard, and I don't think has stopped there yet. Friday we took the kids to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. They absolutely loved it! There was a great Sea Horse exhibit with about 20 different tanks with different species of sea horses and sea dragons. It was quite amazing. They also really loved the kelp forest. I was hoping they'd like the jellies more, as I find them so relaxing and mesmerizing to watch, but for some reason they weren't as thrilled with them as they were the sea horses. The last time I was there was in 2003 and they have added some great stuff about overfishing and global climate change, it was really nice to see.

We also talked to a really nice woman we met at a playground one day. She gave us some good inside views of living in Santa Cruz, as a mother of a 2 year old and stepmom of 2 older kids. Going to a playground was a great idea to get a feel for the people around with kids....I hadn't thought anything of it but to get Parula and Sorrel to release some energy, but it turned out really great for all of us! It was really nice to be back in SC, I had a really great summer there, although it was a long time ago, and I was a single college student, now I have a family and life is much different, it still feels like a really great place to raise kids. There is also a really great Waldorf school nestled amongst the redwoods that sounds oh-so appealing. The idea of going to some fabulous coastline to watch the waves crash everyday makes my soul smile....and the BIRDS! ah, so many wading and shorebirds that I have missed watching.... although I know there are birds in Maine, there are not all THESE birds, migrating from South America up to Alaskan tundra to nest every summer. These are the birds I have watched for so many years in the past and have learned about..... it is so very exciting!


We decided to leave Santa Cruz, as it would be raining and raining for many days on end, and we thought it would be a good time to head back towards the easterly directly. First we headed south, in the rain. We drove down the 101 to Cambria, south of the Big Sur coast, it was a funky small town. The ocean was wild there, as we got out of the van for a brief rest and bathroom break. We drove as far as we could go, which ended in Ventura. We decided to stay in a hotel for the night, as the van had been leaking (yeah, something I forgot to mention earlier), and we wanted to stay dry. So we checked into a hotel by the beach, and incidentally right by the train tracks that has many trains pass through the night, tooting their loud train whistle. There was a reason they put earplugs in the room..... Between the trains and the snoring man next door and the kids running through the hallway in the night (not our kids) we did not sleep much last night. We found a nice place for breakfast in Ventura this morning and drove on our way through L.A. and the downpour. I don't know how we got here, but we are in the desert and it is not raining (knock on wood). I shall write again when I get another chance. I am hoping tomorrow we will get to Tucson and take the kids to the Sonoran Desert Museum. I know a great place to camp nearby there too, just on the edge of the Saguaro National Park. So, here we are headed east, but we still have quite some time until we get back home! We are planning to drive on I-10 all the way to Jacksonville, FL and then up the coast on I-95 all the way to Maine!