Jill's Journal: If there’s one thing Santa Cruz is known for (other than surfers, hippies, social activism, and the slogan “Keep Santa Cruz Weird”), it’s the Beach Boardwalk. We had driven by it a few days ago and one look at the roller coasters had the girls begging us for a visit. Unfortunately, we didn’t realize the attractions, eateries, etc. on the Boardwalk are only open on weekends until summer…and it’s Thursday. Whoops.
It took a while for the girls to accept that none of the 35 rides or attractions were open, but once they got over the disappointment, we still had a fun time walking up and down the famous stretch. It’s far different than boardwalks we’ve been to on the East Coast. In Atlantic City, for example, the boardwalk is all about casinos and shopping, plus it has a really cool old-time feel with the wooden planks (and then there’s the whole awesome Monopoly factor!). It’s kind of an adults’ playground and definitely not family-friendly. The Santa Cruz version is all California: casual yet glitzy, with every next thing bigger and better than the last thing. It’s more of an a teenagers’ dream, mostly an amusement park with an awful lot of beautiful, half-naked people wandering about even in this off-season. The girls are hoping to come back on the weekend, but I think we’ve seen enough. If we were college students with no kids, that might be a different story…
It’s definitely warm enough for shorts! Here’s three little sets of knees seeing gorgeous, intense sunshine for the first time in many months. The Boardwalk stretches for a mile on the white, sandy beach and, after exploring, we were beach-bound for some playtime. I should have taken this picture after those knees were covered in sand!
5 comments:
Is Santa Cruz also known for vampires?!
~Jen
Jen, I can't say I saw any vampires (although there were some definite "characters"). :) But Rob tells me the vampire movie "The Lost Boys" was set there. I had forgotten...the 1980s is getting farther away every day!
ARE...the 1980s ARE getting farther away...geesch!
Ha HA -"The Lost Boys" is always the first thing I think of when I hear Santa Cruz. The son of the owner of the board walk, "Hoss" went to SSU with Amy.
"Hoss" makes me think of Bonanza, a bit of a departure from vampires! And I clearly need to see "The Lost Boys" again. Rob once had it on Betamax, which tells me it’s reeeeealy old (and apparently, so are we).
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