Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk

A nice outing today with my friend Karen, who's moving back to Portland next month. She's been here for a year on a contract (no, not at Apple) - hard to believe it's been a whole year! (Even harder for her to believe, I think!).

We'd originally planned to go to the Computer History Museum, but it turns out that they're only open Wednesday, Friday and Saturday - not Sunday! Who knew? And since Karen couldn't make it on a Saturday, we needed an alternate plan. So, knowing that Karen lives the ocean, I suggested we go down to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, where Karen had been once, and Debbi and I have never been.

The boardwalk is, well, an amusement park on the ocean. It walks the fine line between being a traditional amusement park with rides and food and games to play for prizes, and being modern and trendy. For the most part it sticks to the former feel, and the rides that seem newer tend to be old-fashioned rides, with a few exceptions (like the vertical-drop ride).

Admission is free, which means that the rides charge per ride, typically between $2 and $4. I think we spent $33 on tickets and went on 3 rides each and had enough tickets left for one more ride, so that's not so bad. We enjoyed the water-log ride, but the wooden roller-coaster is the highlight of the park: It felt rickety (though I'm sure it wasn't) and had that "it's been sitting here a re-e-eally long time" feel to it. It's a little freaky to see to be heading right for a crossbeam and then drop out under it!

Other than that we had food, sun, and splashed out feet in the (cold!) ocean water, and generally managed to take Karen's mind off her impending move. Which is just what one asks for on a bright and sunny day! (Well, as long as we don't get sunburned!) Debbi asked, "Why haven't we come here before?" So I suspect we'll be going back!

We had dinner at Frankie Johnny & Luigi's on the way home, so I ended up pretty full, as I do when we go there. Mmm...

I may have mentioned that Debbi's cats have been staying with me for the past week. So they went home with Deb tonight. They stay down sometimes when it's more convenient for Debbi to leave them than to take them back and forth - they really don't like travelling in the car. They do like being down here, and I like having them, although I don't think I lavish the attention on them that Debbi does. And Roulette and Blackjack encourage Newton to try to get me up at 5 am, and frankly I can do without that. Still, I do like seeing them!

But Debbi likes having her kids with her during the week. Her apartment is just rather empty without them!