Santa Cruz

The Board Walk, boy does that bring back memories! As kids my parents would pack us 3 kids into the car and head for Santa Cruz for our summer vacation. I remember Highway 17, because I always got sick on this winding road. I'm sure back then it was even more narrow than it is now plus there was no such thing as air conditioning in cars.. plus 3 cranky hot kids all sitting in the back seat. Actually we were probably all running around the back seat, no seat belts back then. I don't know how my parents didn't just dump us out on the side of the road. I think we must have stayed by one of hotels near the Board Walk because I remember walking there and to the beach. What I remember most was the walk back when I was hot an tired and I must have had 3lbs of sand in my swimsuit.

My daughter went to UC Santa Cruz but we never went to the Board Walk when we visited her.

Though, I'm sure she spent most of her days there on the beach. As we drove into town my husband and I looked around to see if anything looked familliar since we were there quite a few times while she was in school. We couldn't remember anything.. where we turned off to get to UC, nothing looked the same anymore. Of course it's been about 9 years since she was at UC so things have changed. This is the town my G-daughter was born ..it was her first time to actually see Santa Cruz.

I didn't remember the Boardwalk being so large.. of course in 50 years it must have grown a lot. They still have the original roller coaster. I got elected to go on the rides, since my husband won't even think of it. We went on quite a few that went in circles.. that never bothered me before.. must be old age I just can't take it anymore. My favorite ride of the day was the one where we rode in little cars through a haunted house and shot a laser gun at the ghosts. Nice quiet little ride,and the Sky Glider. You get such a great view of the whole area as you go from one end of the Boardwalk to the other. Luckily she decided for some reason that she didn't want to go on the roller coasters. We went to the arcades and played a lot of games and won a lot of tickets so that my G-daughter could pick out a half way decent prize. I am proud to say I didn't eat any thing while we were there. I had a bottle of water. The temptation was certainly there, corn dogs, garlic fries, pretzels, fried Twinkies, etc, etc, etc.. but I refrained...of course, I did have risotto and the cake for breakfast. G-daughter did pretty good, had chicken fingers and a soda, jerky and later a Slurpee. Not too junky. Of course after some of those rides my stomach didn't exactly feel like it would keep any type of food down.

We did a lot of walking and by the end of the day I was getting hungry. I told my husband I couldn't believe after all I ate for breakfast I was hungry. He said we did walk a lot and he thought fear from the rides burned a lot of calories. Around 4:30 G-daughter was finally beginning to wilt so we decided to pack it in and head home. Down Hwy 17 we went ,which was a bad as it's always been.

It was a fun day, a walk down memory lane.