Santa Cruz

JULY 2nd

I may have found one of my favorite places.   We started our day at the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History where our children were introduced to the concept of taxidermy.  Funny thing.  I really thought we would have knocked that one out in Tennessee by now.  However, after several inquiries as to whether the mountain lion was ever alive…it became very clear that we needed to address that one pronto.  Olive was especially curious about the creepy glass eyes and how the animals could be "empty".  Who killed them?  Why are their mouths all open?

Some people just have weird jobs.  That is my typical response to scenarios like that.

Either way, we got a nice lesson on the local wildlife community through the museum exhibits.  We got real familiar with everything from banana slugs to golden eagles.  The live honeybee exhibit was a favorite of mine.  We watched successful  honeybees come home to the colony and perform a special Honey GPS dance.  Did you know this?  If a bee finds an especially good honey spot, it comes back, covered in pollen, and starts doing a secret code dance (lefts and rights and wiggles and waggles) that give the rest of the bees directions!  It is the coolest thing to watch!    Life is so awesome.

Upon leaving the museum, we stumbled on this.  I bet everyone knows that the Santa Cruz boardwalk is the home of an amusement park.  Certainly, everyone that plans on visiting Santa Cruz is aware of this.  But I literally had no idea!  That is the benefit of not knowing where you are going to be that afternoon!  You don't waste anytime googling it.  The kids stared longingly over the fence.  Their little mouths barely managed to eek out the question.  "Mom…are we going over there?"

Um…yeah!!!

But first, there was something we wanted to show them.  The museum director had given us the heads up that we could find Sea Lions underneath the pier.  So, with our secret agenda in mind, we forced the kids to walk all the way through the amusement park and down the pier.  We are sooooo mean!
We were NOT disappointed.  Like the children of typical tourists, they squealed and ran from one end
of the pier to the other.  Listening for those terrible barking noises and conspiring with other touristy families in their quest to spot the babies.

And with THAT out of the way, we made our way to the amusement park!  Olive was especially brave and opted to ride the Pirate Ship with me.  She tried to sneak onto her first roller coaster, but sadly, she was a quarter of an inch too short.  You just can't argue with the measuring stick.  I must admit to having some struggles of my own.    Surrounded by the smells of Philly Steak sandwiches, Corn Dogs and Deep Fried Cheesecake (what????!!!), it occurred to me that we had primarily been surviving on noodles and grilled chicken for 3 weeks.  I realized that if we ever do this again….I am REALLY going to have to step up my camp food game.  This is just NOT gonna cut it.

After using up $50 worth of carnival tickets, we stopped by the Surfer Museum lighthouse and listened to a Gypsy band practicing as the sun went down.   From there, we walked down to the beach and played in the surf at this beautiful natural bridge.  The chilly air and soft light was a beautiful backdrop to the end of that day.  I could have ran up and down that beach all night.     

If I were a honeybee…
I would do some kind of wiggly waggly dance.
Point you to a day just like that one.


Our trip summed up so far:

Currently in:  Santa Cruz, CA
Days Remaining:  10
Miles Driven:  4,475
Money Spent on Gas:            $1,316
Money Spent on Sleeping:    $   241
Money Spent on Eating:       $   801
Money Spent on Other:        $   285
Grand Total Spent so Far:   $ 2,642

Big Sur and Dennis the Menace

June 30 - July 1st

Okay.  So I will start with this.  Blogging about this trip didn't go exactly as I expected.  I envisioned glorious days that ended with me relaxing in the glow of my computer, hashing it all out for you.

Well.  The trip is over.  We are back home. And we only got you updated for half the trip.  The reality is that I was a terrible balancer of time, internet connectivity, and computer battery.  I almost always had one of these things.  Occasionally had two.  But rarely had all three at the same time.  I considered the possibility that I should just end the blog here and let word of mouth answer the rest of the questions.  After all, we are already home!  But then I remembered the real reason for this blog.  I want to remember it.  We have been home two days and holes are already starting to form in this crazy quilt of an adventure.  So…I am just going to keep going from memory!  Keep sharing our favorite pictures and the stories that went with them.  Keep confessing how terribly bad we were at keeping our $3,000 goal in check.  And hopefully manage to keep these memories forever.  

Now.  With THAT out of the way… why don't we start with one of my favorite places.  Big Sur, CA.  Everyone told us to go to Big Sur.  Everywhere we went, strangers that learned of our journey insisted that we must go to Big Sur.  Clearly Big Sur was a Big Deal.  I actually had no idea what it was all about!  So, let me just tell you!  It is the kind of place that our campy camper feels right at home and simultaneously out of place.  It is the most beautiful beach I have ever seen.  The dunes are a carpet of flowers and moss.  The waves crash on jagged rock.  You might find a washed up shark.  We did.  It is a place to find the perfect rock for Dizzy's growing collection.  It was a stunning place.  We were completely surprised by everything we passed.  Big Sur is kind of a Big deal.

After our beautiful, but very cloudy morning at the beach, we headed into Monterey to see what we could find there.  A bit of advice…if you ever consider going to Monterey, the masses will tell you that you should go to the Monterey Aquarium.  They may be right.  We, however, skipped it entirely and stumbled on the most amazing playground.  We spent the whole day there!  The Dennis the Menace Playground was spearheaded in 1956 by Hank Ketcham, the creator of Dennis the Menace.
It is crazy awesome! My favorite part was the super cool Red Rolly Slide made entirely of rolling bars. Now I know what luggage feels like being shoved out of an airplane!

It was a really fun day that we didn't spend a dime on.   Speaking of dimes….it is time to sum of the trip to this point of our journey.

Our Trip Summed Up:

Currently in:  Monterey, CA

Days Remaining:  11

Miles Driven:  4,475

Money Spent on Gas:  $1,316

Money Spent on Sleeping:  $241

Money Spent on Food:  $793

Money Spent on Other:  $235

Total Spent:  $2,584

Yosemite

 

June 26 - 29th

 

 

We woke up to this striking sight this morning.  El Capitan towers over you like a challenge.  In fact, we popped up the camper behind a group of climbers who had travelled a long way to take that rock on.  Their voices trailed off into the brush that surrounds the rock like a fortress.  Indescribably foreign yet  faint enough that we couldn't distinguish where they were from.  We had the most leisurely morning there.  We relaxed in the cool breeze filtering through the camper as the shadows of the morning slowly burned off to reveal that rock in all its magnificence.  My favorite morning of the trip so far.

 

 



They say everything is bigger in Texas.  But we agreed that California might win an arm wrestling battle with Texas.  Trees, boulders, pine cones, dandelions, sky.  Nestled in those National Parks, everything is so impressive! 

Our first adventure of the day was to make it to the base of El Capitan.  Yep folks!  We made it to the BASE.  We stopped every few turns to see if we could find the climbers scaling the vertical walls.  The kids made games of throwing small stones and crushing acorns into paste.  Eventually we spotted the climbers halfway up the rock and we waited around to see each of them reunited with the lead climber up the rock. 

After a day in our self made camp at El Capitan, we made our way to Bridalveil Falls.  We found a quiet place in the creek and hung our hammock over the rocks.  While Dizzy and I played in the stream, Tom and the girls made their way up the slippery rocks to a point where the waterfall created its own private pond.  They took a dip in the ice cold water and remarked on the incredible flowers that grew out of the rocks, quietly out of view from the people below with their cameras. A mischievous Stellar Jay spied on us as we made our way back up the trail.  From there, we left Yosemite Valley and drove up to Glacier Point to see the sunset.   It was a truly incredible thing to see.  At Glacier Point, you can  literally step on the edge of the cliff overlooking all of Yosemite Valley.  There isn't even a guardrail.  The waterfalls, Half Dome and El Capitan were all within view.  Ivy read her book while the rest of us bounced from vantage point to vantage point, intent on seeing every trick of color from every angle.  It did not disappoint.  On the way to the parking lot we spotted a collection of budding astronomers with their equipment, poised to capture something exciting.  A shooting star raced across the sky in that very moment.  Cheers went up all around.  We called it a good night.

After the sunset, we drove down into the valley to find a campsite.  No campsites were available and we weren't big fans of the population density, so we decided to head towards a place called Tuolomne Meadows on the remote side of the park.    We were too tired to make the distance before sleeping, so we pulled into a gas station inside the park and slept sneaky style (no popping up) in the camper.  We woke up early to find several other campers doing the same thing.  Ivy spotted a couple with bicycles that had slept in sleeping bags in the woods next to the parking lot.  We learned they have been biking all over the world for over two years.  They stopped in Yosemite, but are on the long trek back home.  They admitted to taking some pictures of our camper while we slept, so I suspect the next few years might be a new kind of adventure for them!

 

Tuolomne Meadows turned out to be a very restful place.  In fact, we didn't leave the campground for two days.  The kids met a park ranger on horseback and spent the rest of our days following his footprints through the campground.  Ivy followed the sound of drums through the dark and stumbled onto a drum circle led by a sweet girl named Greta.  She let Ivy play the heartbeat drum for awhile.  It totally made her night!  During the days we crossed the river and played in the icy pools.  Tom took the kids fly fishing and they finally stopped counting how many they caught.   It was that easy.  Olive learned how to take the hooks out of their mouths and let them all go.   I took the opportunity to take the longest most luxurious hot water bucket bath I could stand.  Did I mention that California is in a drought and showers are nowhere to be found?  It was a great day.

Yeah.  You should probably go to Yosemite if you get a chance.


Our trip summed up so far: 
Days Remaining:  13
Miles Driven:  4090
Money on Gas:  $1,161
Money on Sleeping:  $241
Money on Eating:  $645
Money on Other:  $227
Total Spent:  $2,273
Goal:  $3,000  
Spoiler alert ...We aren't going to make it : )

Big Trees

 

June 23 -25 - Sequoia National Park

 You are driving through the Sequoia National Forest, keeping your eyes open for any sign of a giant Sequoia tree.  You don't know what to expect, but you imagine that the trees will gradually increase in size as you progress through the park.  And then BAM!  Out of nowhere a giant tree just pops up in the middle of a grove of otherwise average forest.  The truck is full of voices exclaiming, "WOAH!!!"  Eyes are bugging and necks are craning.  Seatbelts are popping off and the weight in the truck shifts to the driver side as everyone clambers for a window seat view.  That is what it is like.  You think you are prepared to see a big tree.  And then...you see one.  It is remarkable.  Walking through a quiet grove of these trees gives you the distinct feeling that you have been made miniature somehow.  You feel like a small animal rummaging around the forest floor. 

The giant trees are definitely the highlight, but the park is so much more than it's forest.  Huge boulders pop out of the mountainside.  Vistas look over incredible valleys.  A really beautiful place.

We hiked the trail to the top of Morro rock and kept a firm grip on Dizzy's hand the entire way up.

 

We learned that giant Sequoias start as very small pinecones that lay dormant on the forest floor for over 10 years waiting for a fire to open them up and release the seeds.  Nearly each mature tree has a deep fire scar that the kids could hunker down and hide inside. 

We played underneath the biggest tree in the world. 

We got really dirty every day.

We stopped each day to see if the bear was in the meadow by our campsite.  He almost always was.

We followed quietly as a docile deer led us at least a quarter of a mile down Sugar Pine Trail. 

We made bows and arrows out of sticks and shoestrings with our new friends at the campsite.

We took a bath in the mountaintop Hume Lake.

A happy group of teenagers gave Dizzy a ride across the lake on a floating log.

All in all, we had a sweet time. 



Our trip summed up so far:

Days Remaining:  17
Miles Driven:        3,711
Gas:                       $1,062
Sleep:                    $   201
Food:                     $  540
Other:                    $  195

Total:                     $1,999 out of a $3,000 goal