San Francisco and Santa Cruz

After leaving the foothills of Sacramento, it was late, so we made our way to Vallejo and decided to park it for the night. Yes, I know, Vallejo. Only an hour or so past the Mechanic, but it was symbolic of the fact that we were actually on our way. We found our hotel online while at the mechanic for extremely low points on one of our hotel plans, which was basically free for us. The kids seemed happy that we were on our way and at a hotel again. It kind of shocked me, since they had so much fun with their cousins, but I guess they do have a bit of adventure in them after all. We spent the evening watching the kids doing their usual jumping from one queen bed to the next while we glanced at each other acknowledging our exhaustion, dreaming of sleep.

The next morning, we were ready to roll back up north. No, not all the way back north. On our way to the hotel, we had passed the Jelly Belly Factory in Fairfield. We just couldn’t resist a free tour at a candy factory, so we headed back north for just a few miles and took a tour. What fun! We were greeted at the door by giant Jelly Belly people who gave the kids free Jelly Bellys. There was a visiting company, Longaberger Baskets and the kids got to see and try out how to weave one of these baskets while we waited for our tour to begin. The tour was fun and interesting, however, if you go on a weekend, you see the machinery, but not in action and there are no factory workers. They have videos for you to watch at each station to show how they make the candy with the vacant machines, and it is pretty cool. At the end you get more free candy, while making your way to the sample area, where you can then taste any flavor bean they make, along with a few other candies. If you haven’t heard of Bertie Bott’s Beans from Harry Potter, they are disgusting flavors from the mind of JK Rowling such as earwax, dirt, boogers and even vomit and rotten egg. Jelly Belly decided this was too good of a sell and actually makes these flavors for Harry Potter fans. We just couldn’t resist trying free samples of them. I was only brave enough to try the soap and earthworm, husband (still waking up with coffee in hand) said no way, while the boys were daring each other to eat boogers and vomit. We all laughed so much! How did they taste? Disgusting as promised, with a hint of sugar. The kids each bought a small bag of their favorite flavors, none of which were the Bertie Bott’s, and we all left smiling.

San Francisco was next on our path. Our original goal was to spend the day going to the Exploratorium and then going to the park near Crissy Field, and a stop at Fisherman’s Wharf for lunch. One thing you have to know is our Eurovan is tall and long. We measured close to 9 feet with our rack on top, and with 4 bikes hooked up to the hitch in the back, we are not at a size where we can easily park, especially in garages and parallel parking in the city. It was lunchtime and we were ready to eat. I headed toward the Wharf, but because it was Saturday, it was busy. We all know that traveling to see tourist spots without crowds is always better during the week, but timing had us in one of the world’s biggest tourist cities on a Saturday. At least it was still winter, which definitely kept some of the crowds away. As we explored for a parking space, we headed down a back road and found a metered double spot and parked. Right next to it was a hotel with a restaurant. Not being a tourist destination, it was dead inside at the lunch hour. Perfect, we said, and headed in for a quiet lunch.

Next, we had to find our way to the north end of the city in the Marina district. It was a beautiful day and decided to go to the park first. It was also a bit crowded, but we parked away from the harbor, got out our bikes and took our very first family bike ride ever with the Golden Gate Bridge showing off in the background. It was magical. We road all the way to the end of Crissy Field, stopped to watch the surfers, stopped on the way back to play on the sandy beach and didn’t leave until the rain clouds got so dark and serious, we had no choice. We were all packed up again just in time as the rain began to fall. We all decided it was our best trip to San Francisco. The Exploratorium was forgotten.

It rained our whole way to Los Gatos, a fancy little place that is the last stop before heading over the mountains to Santa Cruz on Hwy 17. We drove into Los Gatos, hoping to find a quick inexpensive meal. Quick and inexpensive are contrary to the way of life in this town, which we realized as we were stuck in traffic trying to drive down main street. Not only was it Saturday night, but it was close to 7. We knew we would never find a place to eat that we could bring our dirty-back-from-biking selves respectfully to. On our way back to the freeway, our lucky stars found us a taqueria. We stopped and ran through the rainy parking lot towards the place and found that this was no taco stand. This was $10 per ala carte plate of food, that’s right, no rice and beans on the side and chips are extra. Everyone was dressed up, even here, but there were a lot of kids signaling to us that this was “Los Gatos casual”. So we ate quickly and drove through the rain, down the winding Hwy 17 to Santa Cruz. When we arrived we drove by a few hotels with the red “no” lit up next to the vacancy signs and having no luck, we began calling hotels. After about 8 phone calls, we were thrilled to find our beds for the night in Scott’s Valley.

The rain was pouring down, and even worse, the forecast showed that it would stay that way all the way down the entire coast for close to a week. Camping was not an option yet. The next morning we began calling around for weekly rates in the area. We found (and highly recommend) the Rio Sands Motel. It is in Aptos, just south of Santa Cruz about 5 miles. It is a quiet town away from the hustle and bustle of downtown Santa Cruz, and the rooms are inexpensive and simple (ours had a full kitchen and two rooms), but there are two hot tubs and what they call a heated pool, and it’s only a block from a fantastic beach. Husband worked hard getting our roof carrier off the top, bikes off the back and everything out and drying under the patio while the rain poured and poured.

Our week in the Santa Cruz area was peaceful and memorable. Husband and I met almost 11 years ago at the Fogbank in Capitola, just a mile north of Aptos, so it keeps a special place in our hearts. Everyday we were able to ride bikes down the beach, sit in the hot tub while the kids swam in the freezing pool. By the end of the week, we were enjoying the warmth of the sun and lying out by the pool working out of our Washingtonian white skin. We spent a lot of time thinking about staying another week. Although our comfort was high, something down deep was pressing us forward. Maybe it was the idea that we were trying to run away from comfort. Put ourselves into simpler situations where we have to try to become more creative and work together to see what else this world is for, besides sitting around the pool, soaking in the hot tub, and riding bikes along the beach. Maybe we have just lost our mind, but we left luxury to try our luck at camping.