Rolling into Santa Cruz
The simple story behind Santa Cruz (situated on the Monterey Bay) is this–in the 1960s the counterculture boom made things in San Fran a bit too crowded, so the intellectual crowd headed South, to Santa Cruz. So, the answer is yes, Dionne Warwick, they do know the way to San Jose (that’s the nearest major city in proximity to SC), a.k.a. Silicon Valley.
My twin sister’s favorite book is John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley. It’s pretty fitting because she’s a journey seeker, and the whole book is an account of Steinbeck’s road trip with his standard poodle named Charley. So when she moved to Santa Cruz, California from Baltimore, Maryland this summer, she actually did what so many of us (me, me, me) dream about doing–taking weeks to travel to her new home. She visited friends and family along the way stopping and enjoying the drive as much as the destination. Even camped solo (so brave) in some of the most inspiring places in North America. One early morning before dawn in the Badlands, she woke up to a bison stampede … beats an alarm clock any day.
Now that she is settled in SC, my older sister and I met up with my twin for a bit of a girly get-away. We’ve all been busy this year. My older sister has a big-wig job, a husband who travels for his job, and two kiddos under the age of four. My twin just uprooted her life (new job, said new town, and end of an 8-year relationship), and me–I’ve been a bit buried in both work and worry lately, so it was due time to whip out the mascara and skinny jeans. But, really, more like cut-offs and tank tops, as that’s more the way they roll…
The point in my story about my twin’s travels to get to Santa Cruz is that that’s pretty much what we did there. We stopped and took a moment to digest it all. We visited with friends and family, saw some of the prettiest places in Nor Cal, and just slowed down. If you ever need a little (or a lot of) space to clear your head–Santa Cruz squarely fits the bill. Here’s a bit about our trip, and my favorite spots along the way. This week, the pop on Eddie Vedder’s muse–Santa Cruz.
