Central-NorCal Roadtrip

Brandy was kind enough to show me around one of her favorite places: Santa Cruz. I had never been, but figured what's not to love about a beach with a fun boardwalk? Santa Cruz did not disappoint. My favorite fashion statement of the day was the girl rocking two belts. Brandy the genius interpreted the trend: one was for function and one was for fashion, obviously.

We started off at the pier (which I think might be the only pier that I've ever been able to drive and park on). The highlight of the trip for me was probably seeing the sea lions lounging around. We saw a herd of them at the end of the pier and got to witness one of them (whom I named Lucinda, Lucy for short) trying to launch herself up onto the landing below the pier. And looking at this guy sunbathing, who could blame her?

~Lucy makes her approach...

~and promptly missed.

She did this a number of times. It was heartbreaking to watch, but that girl wouldn't give up! The backstory that we made up was that she was an adolescent sea lion working on differentiating from her family (who still call her Lucinda although she's told them many a times that her name is Lucy!) Well girlfriend showed them! Here she is after making the miraculous leap.

~And then her family gathered below to celebrate her with chants of, "Lucy! Lucy! Lucy!" And they all lived happily ever after (complete with healthy boundaries). The End.

I could have watched those guys all day, but we were getting hungry so we grabbed some clam chowder from Stagnaro Brothers and made our way over to the boardwalk. Unfortunately, neither of us had coins to get our fortune from the creepy animatronic fortune teller machines, but we did pick up some salt water taffy from Marinis.

Here we are working our "bait" poses. Notice, I finally read the memo about the hip pop.

The fun didn't stop there my friends! Oh, no! We still had the whole drive home. We stopped off at the outlets at Gilroy (home of the famous Garlic festival). Lots of garlic pictures around town, but no stench. What's up with that? Our main reason for the stop, the Coach store was a bust and way too crowded so we quickly moved on.

This little roadside menagerie is quickly moving up the list as a potential honeymoon destination. There's a cool fruit stand, a restaurant, hotel, sweet shop, train, and a creepy carousel. What more could you ask for?

Funny names, that's what. There's casa de fruta, casa de restaurant, casa de motel, casa de sweets, casa de choochoo, and casa de carousel. So amazing, I couldn't even make that stuff up!

Bran and I ended our day with some yummy (and inexpensive sushi) then some more girl talk. That's the way you do NorCal, folks.