CA day 3: Santa Cruz Wharf + UC Botanical Gardens + Natural Bridges Beach + Point Lobos + Coastal Hwy 1

 Our second full day in California started bright and early, at the crack of dawn you could say. Since we were all sharing a room, once one person started rustling around, the rest of us woke up. In normal life, Zac and I stay up 2-3 hours after the kids go to bed, and on weekends the kids get up two hours before we do. But on this trip we went to bed with the kids and woke with the kids. This system worked well for the trip since we got going for the day sooner and had more time for all our adventures, and there wasn't anything to do after dark anyway.  On this particular day, we woke up at 6:30 am and got to enjoy beautiful morning views of the Santa Cruz beach right from our hotel room balcony.

Once we all had some food, we headed out for a morning walk on the wharf. Alice and I wanted to show Zac and Simon the seals we'd discovered last night. Sure enough, they were sunning themselves under the pier and on the remnants of old docks.

On our way back to our room, we noticed that the restaurant right outside our hotel was open for breakfast. We decided it would be fun to eat outside while watching the beach community come to life. Unfortunately, the kids didn't care for their ham and egg croissants that looked like giant sea shells with the ham and cheese baked inside. Zac and I shared a breakfast burrito and tried to help the kids finish their food. So far, eating out with the kids wasn't going very well. For our supper yesterday, Alice ordered a bacon cheeseburger but then didn't want it because it came with mustard on it, so I had to eat it (yuck) and traded her my nice healthy chicken salad pita. Anyway, it was a struggle for them as food that sounded good on the menu turned out to be quite different in reality.

After second breakfast, we packed up and drove to the nearby UC Santa Cruz Arboretum and Botanic Garden. It was filled with really cool flowers and trees, but the kids struggled. They don't really like to just look at things -- they want to climb and trample. Having to stay on paths and not being able to climb trees is torture for them, which means they torture us with their whining as we constantly reprimand them to get out of the tree, stay on the path, stop picking things.... We ended up walking around fairly quickly, and then eating our lunch sandwiches under a tree at like 10:30 am.

In addition to chasing lizards, Simon had to resort to entertaining himself by snorting up flower petals, making us take a picture of him, then laughing hysterically at how ridiculous he looked.

Anyway, we saw some pretty flowers.

Our next stop was nearby Natural Bridges State Park Beach. Now this was more like it. The kids could climb, run around, and play as they pleased. The rocky ledge had tide pools with creatures for Simon to find, the beach had sand for the kids to dig in, and the ocean had water for Alice to run in. Zac and I explored a bit, but mostly just sat around relaxing and enjoying the scenery.

Around 2 pm we needed to head out. Today was a big driving day, 3.5 hours along the scenic coastal highway 1, but first we needed to get gas and more groceries, since our next destination was rather remote.  So this part of the story is about how time got away from us. Somehow the gas and groceries took longer than expected (I couldn't find the fruit snacks in the grocery store and kept circling around determined not to be defeated. Turns out they were with the breakfast cereal. Then the checkout line took forever...) 

We were finally on our way, and I started trying to figure out where we could get supper. The plan was simple: stop to pick up Chinese take-out at the last real town, about an hour into the drive. Choosing restaurants was a surprisingly difficult task as I toggled between maps and Yelp reviews on my phone, trying to figure out locations and prices and food the kids would actually eat. The restaurant I finally selected, called Tommy's Wok, ended up being tucked away in a trendy part of a trendy town called Carmel-by-Sea, just past Monterey. We had trouble finding the restaurant, and the street parking was limited and full, so we finally pulled into a bank parking lot, exasperated, only to find the door to the restaurant magically right there at the back of the parking lot. I used the restroom, picked up the food I had called in, and jumped back in the car and we zipped off to nearby Point Lobos State Natural Reserve to eat our supper at a picnic table. 

Point Lobos turned out to be stunningly beautiful. We could have spent a day or two exploring the entire park, but alas, we just had time to eat our Chinese food and do a quick hike up to look at the incredible views of giant waves smashing into giant rocks. 

By the time we left it was already 6:15 pm and we still had over two hours of driving to do to get to our hotel in San Simeon. There wasn't enough daylight left, so despite my best efforts to keep us on schedule, we ended up doing the last part of the scenic, winding road in the dark. But before that, we had some beautiful views!

And we got to see our west coast sunset at least!

CA day 2: Methuselah Tree + Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park + Santa Cruz Beach

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:

https://youtube.com/shorts/N1CpBdz2y6o

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.

CA day 1: Fly from RDU to SFO

I started officially planning this trip to California in August of 2021, but really it goes back to the summer of 2018 when I laid in bed so sick with my ulcerative colitis that I couldn't imagine ever being able to hike again. There was one weekend where a false reading on an ultra-sound made me think I had liver cancer on top of everything else, and I was fairly convinced I would just die. Among the many practical thoughts that coursed through my brain at the idea of passing away prematurely (mostly to-do lists) I had only one major regret: that I'd never gotten out to California to see the giant sequoias and redwoods. Two significant surgeries, a 40th birthday, and a pandemic later, it was time to just do it. The kids were finally old enough to undergo the arduous 6-hour flight and were capable of longer hikes.  They were old enough to probably even remember the trip. Plus, California was burning and I needed to get out there before my trees were all gone. (About a month after I started working on the trip, the KNP Complex fire did burn through Sequoia National park.)

So, in August when Alice had COVID-19 and we were all stuck at home for a while, I got to work figuring out the logistics of the trip. The first step was to spend countless hours studying google maps to figure out where to go. I had the vague idea of a road trip in a loop.  I also got some guide books out at the library to get a list of the best places to see. My original plan had us going north and south and had way too much driving for a mere 12 days. Eventually Zac and I decided on a mid-southern loop: start in San Francisco, drive south along the coast a bit, go over to Sequoia National Park and up to Yosemite National Park, then back over to San Francisco. It took countless hours to even map out the framework of the trip, then countless more hours to research and reserve flights, a rental car, and hotels in each place. That was phase one. 

For phase two, deciding what to actually do in each location, I waited until late March. Even then, it was a bit difficult to plan because some things were still closed from the winter, some were closed due to pandemic restrictions (or just hadn't updated their websites since the omicron surge died down), and some were closed because we would be there before the true tourist season started in May. Eventually I got a rough outline of fun activities to do each day and started to get really excited about the trip. There were some low points early on, like finding out one of the hotels I reserved in Sequoia National Park was closed due to fire damage, or that some really awesome tree groves were closed due to fire damage, but luckily enough survived that there were still places to go. 

It took so much time to plan and prepare and figure out this trip. We'd never travelled like this before and this was totally new terrain. On top of all that, I had a ton of work to do in advance to prepare for missing a mere three days of school. It was also peak Phoenix Fest preparation time, so I had to prepare materials and emails and forms and documents to all auto-send out while I was gone. To put it simply, I was stressed out from working around the clock planning the trip and preparing work stuff. 

So when we finally set out on Wednesday afternoon, I was ready to reap what I had sown. I picked the kids up from the school carpool line around 4pm (since the bus doesn't drop them off until about 4:40 or later). Zac had worked from home, so he got the house all prepped for departure. Our neighbor Kelly kindly offered to go with us to the airport and drive our van home so we wouldn't have to pay for parking for two weeks or fret about a cab not showing up on time. We left our humble house around 4:30 pm on Wednesday and finally set out for our great adventure. We had a minor traffic jam on the way to the airport, but still arrived with plenty of time to eat our sandwiches and fill our water bottles while waiting to board our flight. We took off around 6:45 pm.

Alice and I sat next to each other in front of Zac and Simon, so both kids could have window seats.  Although technically they've both flown before (a little plane at the beach that took us up for half an hour several years ago), this was their first real flight. They seemed to enjoy the thrill of departing from the earth and looking out the window as everything got smaller. Simon had been quite worried about airplane crashes, so he asked a lot of questions every time there was turbulence, but mostly took it all in stride. The distraction of the switch (handheld gaming device) helped a lot too. Alice also soon acclimated to being thousands of feet above ground, and turned to her books and electronics for entertainment. Overall, the flight went smoothly and both kids even slept a bit. The mask mandate was still in effect in airports and on flights, so everyone wore masks except when they were eating.

We arrived in San Francisco around 9:45 pm local time. We successfully collected all our luggage (they ended up gate-checking our carry-ons, which was quite convenient) and boarded the shuttle bus to our hotel. We were exhausted but exhilarated to finally be in California!

We could have fit everything into carry-ons, but the big duffle bag is stuffed with sleeping bags and winter coats for Yosemite.

 Simon still needed to play Wordle on Zac's phone before bed.

Duke Gardens with Anna

 Jess and Rosa invited Alice to come to Duke Gardens with Anna for the day.

Burlington Visit

 The kids actually played together with Julian, perhaps for the first time ever. Basketball on a beautiful spring day is the key.