Santa Cruz

Doug and I were up early enough this morning to see the sheep return to their pasture.  They were a lot more active this morning than yesterday afternoon and spent most of the time we were watching munching on the grass or scratching their backs on the branches of the bushes in their field.  I don't know why I found them so fascinating, but they definitely made our stay even better than we imagined.  I commemorated our stay with a new pair of sheep earrings that I found for sale while checking out of our room.  

Aunt Rosie had given us a list of things to do in Santa Cruz on our way back to Sonoma County which we really appreciated today.  First, we drove up the 17-mile drive that took us past Pebble Beach.  I had always felt bad that we didn't take Cameron and Meg on it when we were there seven years ago, but once I realized that the famed golf course was hard to see from the road, I felt a lot better about it.  It was awesome to see the tree that was on their logo still standing on its rock in the ocean, but overall, it wasn't as neat as I thought it would be.  While we were on the drive, we did get to see the seals on "seal rock" and the birds nesting on "bird rock" which I loved.  I was also surprised to see four other golf courses along the first half of the drive.  

We stopped in Monterey next to see the otters at Lover's Point.  It had been our second time there and I decided that it would be my last.  The otters are hard to spot out in the ocean, and the rock is hard to walk on especially with all of the ground squirrels in the area.  They were not afraid of humans, and I was scared that I was going to step on them as they kept running near our feet.  From there we went to Gayle's Bakery next.  Aunt Rosie had highly recommended it, and we were ready for breakfast.  The parking lot was a nightmare, but the food and deli style atmosphere were great.

Our last stop before heading north was Henry Cowell State Park.  We had been there on our last trip and wanted to compare their redwoods to what we saw in Muir Woods.  We were correct in remembering that they are a lot wider than the ones in the national park.  We found out today that was because they were roughly five hundred years old.  It was rainy and cold, but still very beautiful and both of us enjoyed the hike very much.