Our hotel, the San Francisco Airport Marriott Waterfront, was right on the bay, but the tide was out in the morning leaving a rocky shore and a mucky mess. For our first breakfast in California, we got some sausage and egg biscuits from the hotel Starbucks using my infinite student gift card credit, and ate them outside on a bench overlooking the mud flat with the airport runways in the distance. Then Zac walked to the nearby car rental agency where I had a reserved a full-sized sedan, while I kept an eye on the kids as they climbed the rocks and trees along the shore.
The car rental place said they only had a mid-sized car available, so we embarked on our 11-day family road trip crammed into a Kia Forte. It was actually fine, and the sporty car ended up serving us well on all the winding mountain roads we traversed. Our first stop, though, was the nearby Safeway grocery store to load up on car snacks, fresh fruits and vegetables, sandwich materials, and miscellaneous items like tissues, wet wipes, paper plates, plastic cutlery, and ziplock sandwich bags. We also bought a cheap Styrofoam cooler, whose squeaking between the back of the driver's seat and Simon's feet was soon the bane of our existence. (It was eventually banished to the trunk.)
Our first tourist stop was the Methuselah Tree along highway 35 between San Francisco and Santa Cruz. I was determined to see giant redwoods on my first day, and had been deeply saddened to learn that Big Basin Redwoods State Park (a premier location for large redwoods) was closed due to fire damage (a common theme in my trip planning). But by scouring Google maps, I came across this lone giant: a huge tree dating to 217 CE that was a short walk from a roadside pullout. The 45 minute drive to the tree was scenic, as we wound through hills on the aptly named "Skyline Blvd." Anytime you travel to a different ecological zone, it is just so fun to see all sorts of different plants and trees.
When we got to the Methuselah Tree stop, we only had to walk a few steps from the car to see it. Reader, I cried. It was like being in the presence of a god. I'd never seen anything like it in real life. To state the obvious, it was massive. No picture can adequately portray its majesty. It's impossible to capture it's height in a photo, and the branches obscure the top anyway, so you just place your kids in front of it for scale and snap a photo, hoping your memory holds the rest.
While admiring the nearly 2,000 year old tree, I vividly remembered laying in bed pathetically sick nearly four years ago, thinking I'd never get to see one of these creatures, and here I was, Lazarus gazing upon Methuselah.
(This website has some drone videos of the whole tree.)
There was a path below the tree where you could see some stumps of Methuselah's unlucky cousins.
Although I was ready to contact the California Water Service Company (owners of the land) about building a hut and just hunkering down next to my new love for the rest of my life, we decided to carry on. Afterall, there were more redwoods right down the road.
Our next stop was Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park which had a little 1-mile loop of old growth redwoods that was easy to get to. Although I would've loved to do longer hikes to intriguing places on the trail map such as "Garden of Eden" and "Cathedral Redwoods," it was already nearly 2:30 pm, so we had to stick to the heavily trafficked tourist loop around the fenced-off ancient grove.
But it was wonderful. While Methuselah stood alone in its majesty, these redwoods had friends.
Here's another video:
Simon's favorite thing is to squeeze himself into small spaces.
After going around the Old Growth Loop, we went down the adjacent river trail just to check it out. Even although it wasn't very hot out and the water was freezing, both kids took off their socks and shoes and started wading. Zac got in too, and he and Simon found Californian crawdads. Of course.
The kids love climbing trees, and it was a struggle for them to have to leave most of the redwoods alone. Luckily by the river there were some less-protected trees they could play in.
By about 4:30 pm we bid farewell to the big trees and finished our journey to Santa Cruz. We did the drive-thru at Jack in the Box on our way into town and picked up some sandwiches for our supper. We checked into our hotel for the night, Beach Street Inn & Suites, right across the street from the beach (as the name implies). We ate our burgers in our room, then headed down to the beach for the evening.
The beach was lovely. Since it was a cool Thursday evening, it wasn't very crowded. I was soon chilled by the wind, but the kids were undeterred and waded right in.
After frolicking in the surf, they eventually turned their attention to digging holes in the sand.
Alice got bored and cold, so I took her back to our room where she showered off, then we bundled up and headed back out for a walk on the wharf. Simon was still happily playing in the sand with Zac.
The Santa Cruz wharf is huge. It is about half a mile long, packed with restaurants and cars. There is a pedestrian sidewalk on both sides, and as we got farther out, we could see swarms of seals churning in the bay. They used the reinforcements between the pilings under the pier as their resting places. In the video below, you can hear their eerie barking emanated from under the wharf.
It was hard to believe we'd had such a successful and incredible first day. I'd had a lot of trepidation about this trip, having never planned something quite like this before. But we were off to a good start. Still a little bit on NC time, we went to bed early, resting up for another fun day tomorrow.
