We went as passengers in Keith's truck. The road through the vineyards and hills was curvy and many times had no shoulder. On two occasions the road was one lane. They had signal lights to stop traffic in those areas. Even with those restrictions we encountered several cyclists. Much of the trip was through heavy forest. Occasionally we had panoramic views of valleys below, but they were fleeting.
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| Looking from the wharf toward the boardwalk |
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| Looking from the wharf toward town |
This wharf makes the piers in some other towns we have visited, Oceanside and Pismo Beach, seem small. There was room for several hundred cars, even Keith's huge truck. We parked about midway out on the pier. There were a lot of people fishing off the wharf. We stopped and watched several. Everyone seemed to be catching. The fish were mackerel and on the average they were probably about 10" long. While we walked on the wharf, Keith and I fell behind looking for a geocache. We found the bench where the cache was located. It was piled up with the gear belonging to a couple of fishermen. We had to get down on our knees to look under the bench. A cursory search didn't produce the cache. I started checking each individual bolt and screw. I finally felt around crevices and corners and finally located the small magnetic container.
Alice and Gerri walked through some shops. We finally decided on a restaurant for lunch. We had a great view of a large portion of Monterrey Bay from our seats in the restaurant. There were a few large sail boats coming and going that were obvious, judging from the number of passengers, tours of the bay. There was one group of small sail boats That were sailing around almost always centered around a motorized inflatable. As we watched they sailed in large and small circle making different maneuvers. Eventually they all went through a capsize drill before sailing around the end of the wharf out of sight.
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| Keith and Alice Kerslake, Gerri and me |
The restaurant we choose was the Riva Fish House. www.rivafishhouse.com Gerri and Alice both ordered the special of the day, mussels in a chili rojo broth. The broth had peppers, potatoes, mushrooms, onions and tomatoes. Great for dipping with the fresh bread they served. Keith and I both had the fish and chips. The fish was a very firm cod, I had a piece left over.
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| The Santa Cruz Lighthouse |
After eating we drove to a nearby light house and took some pictures of the area. The Santa Cruz Lighthouse was originally built in in the 1860's. http://www.lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=87The current structure was built in 1967 and is now a museum.
Before getting on the highway back to the rv park Keith stopped for fuel. I only bring this up to point out that at least in this area, diesel fuel is priced cheaper than regular gasoline. The gasoline is still in the $4 range, diesel was $2.61.
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| The wharf and bay view from the lighthouse |
The drive back to Morgan Hill was of course a reverse of the trip to Santa Cruz. It was faster because the heaviest traffic was still going toward the coast.
Back at the RV park everyone took a break. I reread the hint and logs on a nearby cache that I couldn't find a few days ago, and went to try it again. It was much higher in the tree than I had searched before. Even with my height I couldn't reach the original hiding spot. I let the owner know that in my log. This find brought me to 2 for the day.
Since we had eaten a late lunch, we only ate snacks as we visited during the early evening It was really comfortable sitting outside. The weather cools off about 30 degrees at night compared to the daytime highs. The moon was almost full last night but it hadn't risen by the time we went in for the night.
Some TV, computer and reading took us to an 11 o'clock bedtime.
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