Santa Cruz - Part One

Santa Cruz is my homie. I spent many weekends of my childhood at the boardwalk, did my undergrad program at UC Santa Cruz and maxed out my credit cards downtown. In recent years I haven't been able to go as much but I had today off so I went to reconnect with my city.

I started with breakfast at Cafe Brasil with my friend Angela.

They serve the best feijoada EVER!!! Rice, beans, collard greens, sausage, oranges... Brazilian jambalaya!

Down the street is a community garden. Have I mentioned how much I love gardening? I'll come back in a couple of months and see how it's doing.

After breakfast I went to Natural Bridges State Beach.

Monarch butterflies live here in the winter but they're gone right now. It's still a beautiful walk though.

I wanted to get some pictures of the tidepools but the tide was too high. So I ended up going around a back way through a mobile home park for seniors. Let me tell you, if heaven was a mobile home park it would look like this.

Check out this pimped-out mobile home:

I finally got to the tide pools but the tide was still too high to get to see much. I want you all to know that I risked my life and fell on my tushie to get this picture.