Weekend in Santa Cruz

We spent Saturday and Sunday at the coast in a place called Santa Cruz.  We drove to the BART Station and got a bus to San Jose and then from there took a bus to Santa Cruz.  We were initially only going for the day but thought there might be a chance that we might decide to stay overnight.  We liked the place as soon as we got there so set about finding somewhere to stay straight away.  Santa Cruz is an expensive place to stay and we tried a few places that were fully booked.  We then found a place right on the sea front looking out on the beach and went for that one!  Our hotel was called 'Casa Blanca'!!!!

Our room was small but nice

and this was the view from our room

The Beach

We went for a long walk on the beach and my poor feet were blistered underneath by the end of it!!!  It was scorching hot but the sea was freezing cold!!! 

There was a lovely pier with lots of yummy seafood restaurants so we managed to eat some great food!  There was also a fab vintage Thunderbird car show on the pier.  I fell in love with several of the beautiful cars being shown there.  Here's a few

Here's me in front of a lovely pink Thunderbird

There were sea lions 'lounging' around the pier also and you could hear them barking throughout the night!!  I love them, and you could get up very close to them.

                                                                     Smile please!!

Yesterday we went on a steam train trip into the Redwood Forest which was lovely.  It was relaxing to be in the middle of a dense forest and look up to the highest trees I've ever seen.  The Redwood trees have a special bark on them that doesn't burn easily which makes them ideal when there are forest fires.