Santa Cruz Area - Feb 16th

Woke to a cold 34F/1C morning.... Burrrr. It's also quite overcast, so a slow morning, me catching up on the blog, and then washing up a mountain of dishes. lol Ray's was busy doing the pictures and proofing the blog posts.

We'd planned to drive up to Santa Cruz this morning, but with the grey skies, everything looks grey on their web cams. No blue water and skies so far this morning and it's only 46F ... Burrrr. 

However, by 10 am the sky was definitely clearing so we decided to go. Our objective is to see things we did not see the last time here in 2017.

Our first stop was the small town of Capitola. A beautiful seaside town known for their colourful waterfront buildings. Unfortunately, they were all severely damaged in the January storms and a lot of them still have sandbags at doorways and plywood on windows and doors.

This is what it is supposed to look like.

As you see they are just steps from the beach.

Their pier is also missing a huge section.

This is their Fishing Pier.

Whatever businesses these are, they are closed indefinitely now.

This is what happened on January 5, 2023

CAPITOLA, Calif. (KRON) — California beach town residents woke up Thursday morning to collapsed ocean piers, massive 35-foot waves, tide surges, and widespread flooding.

Coastal chaos stretched from beaches in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties all the way up to San Francisco and Marin. An atmospheric river-powered rainstorm triggered evacuation orders for residents living closest to the beaches Wednesday night.

I took some pictures of the beach with a loader working to get rid of all the log debris and move the sand back up to support the walkway. This beach usually have a lot of surfers and a shower station for them to use.

Our granddaughter Amelia would have loved to watch this loader working.

Walking through the little town, Ray snapped more pictures. So cute. All the open buildings close to the beach have occupancy permits displayed.

Lots of skinny walkways to some holiday rentals.

Soquel River Railway Bridge

Ray also spied this truck beside the beach bar.

Back in the car to the Santa Cruz Mission.

This portion of the adobe, built in the early 1800s, is the only surviving building from Mission Santa Cruz. Archeological excavations in the 1980s revealed that this had been Indigenous family housing, the only example of its kind still standing in California today.

The Santa Cruz Mission church was destroyed in earthquakes. A painting by Leon Trousset was based on details provided by the locals after a most devastating earthquake in 1857. In 1858 a "modern" wooden church was erected where the mission church once stood.

Below are pics of the only remaing building. 

Shows an old native housing space before the Spanish built over it.

More wallpaper put on white washed walls.

In late 1800's it was "remodelled" for other inhabitants, non-indigenous, with a larger window frame and wallpaper.

After our "self tour" it was time to head into downtown Santa Cruz for lunch. First Ray took some pictures of their town clock.

And this cool looking building with an "erector dinosaur" in front.

This is where we thought we would have lunch .... at the Irish Pub but it turned out it didn't open until 4 pm.

Next door to it is Betty's Eat Inn, a diner, as you can see, so we decided to try it out. Good decision.

One half of this Airstream is inside, the other outside.

Food is fast and delicious.

On our way back to the car we passed this place .... Cookies! Of course we want a baker's dozen!

My Cookie Monster!

Back in the car to see the Natural Bridges State Park. Once there, we realized we'd seen it last time, so only took these pictures from the "free parking lot". 

Lots of birds on the rock ... but if you look in the distance on the beach, tons of tourists that look like more birds lol

The view in the other direction from the lookout.

The flowers are starting to bloom here.

Back in the car to come home. Another lovely day. Tomorrow we leave for San Francisco. This has been a great 4 days.