today begins our extended holiday weekend road trip up to santa cruz and the san francisco bay area to visit old haunts and friends. i woke up this morning 4:30am, shocking. we were supposed to leave by 5:30am but by the time we left the house and got gas, well then it wasn't until about 6:20~6:30am that we were officially on the road. damn, there was really bad traffic! all those LA morning commuters. hell i tell you. it wasn't until 8am that we reached the ventura county line. so much for waking up early!

neptune pool

for this trip we're taking a relaxed journey up the coast. we took the 101 to san luis obispo then switched over to the 1 so that we could go to hearst castle. twiddle thumbs and i have both been there as children but never as adults. plus, there's several different tours so it would take awhile to see the whole house if you're interested in doing all that. we arrived and were hungry. we decided to eat the food we made in the car instead of going to go get tickets first. perhaps a minor mistake. we got tickets around 11:40am and the most popular tour, tour #1, was sold out for any reasonable departing time. that's the intro tour for first timers. we didn't want to wait until 3pm for that damn tour so we picked tour #2 at 12:20pm. all the tours swing you by the pools because that's just a mandatory feature to view. who wouldn't want to swim in one of those? well, apparently the tour guides do once per year. in the outdoor neptune pool. damn. that's pretty fucking cool. tour #2 also takes you to view mr. hearst's private quarters which were off limit to even his guests back in the day. you also get to see the kitchen (not that exciting).

squirrel at piedras blancas

after that was over, we kept going on 1 (AKA pacific coast highway) all the way up to santa cruz. we took the scenic route one might say. we stopped at vista points that interested us. it got foggy. when the fog let up and the sun would shine, we would stop for pictures. there was a place with elephant seals. a beach full of them. we stopped there. however, what isn't noted on the sign is that it's also a great place to take pictures of squirrels. damn, i took a lot of squirrel photos! it's those beach bum squirrels you can see whenver you stop at these vista points. they're so used to humans feeding them (which you shouldn't!) that they get extremely close to you. one of them even put his little paw on me as i was squating down to take his picture. their teeth are an atrocious shade of yellow that made me fear getting bit and contracting some odd vermin disease.

a break in the fog

as we drove up 1, it was nice to be able to stop and admire things, even if it was foggy and not sunshine perfect. fog is normal there! i've driven 1 but usually at night or in a hurry. never had time to stop and smell the roses, so to speak. still though, i have curvy road experience and made a few people pull over so i could pass them. tourists! we stopped in the tiny town of gorda to get a fillup. it was full service. it felt really weird to just sit there as the guy pumped gas and i paid. i never got out of the car. so not used to that. we were laughing when we saw the signs for the town. gorda? i could live there! (it means fat girl.)

the lone cypress, 17 mile drive

we decided to check out 17 mile drive for a 1 hour+ detour. we got there and it's like, excuse me, you have to pay?! oh fuck it. hell, we're here, might as well. when's the next time we'll be here? who knows! i wanted to see that lone cypress tree because it's famous. let me tell you right now, it's completely overrated. i think i've seen nicer vistas for free just driving up and down the coast. what was incredibly nice though was the homes owned by those rich bastards. see, here's the weird thing. it's like a park or sanctuary and yet it's not because there's a big track of homes. plus there are the golf courses. it's for the super rich who love golf but some of those homes were so beautiful and the scenery for that area is nice in general so it would be a fantastic place to live. if you're poor like me however, better start looking at remote places in the world that are still cheap if you want to live close to the water.

we finally reached santa cruz at 7pm. we got off the freeway and headed straight to jalapeño's #2 to get a vegan burrito. you know, we used to love it but something's different about the burrito. it's missing something. could it be love? it just wasn't the same. there was no flavor to it. nothing special. in fact if i had never known that they made a good burrito, i wouldn't have been disappointed. i just would've thought it's another shitty taqueria. after that we checked out downtown santa cruz. we drove down the main street to get a sense of what, if anything, has changed. what's changed is santa cruz is getting more corporate! 2 of the movie theaters have been taken over by regal/edwards. that's pretty shocking given santa cruz's anti-chain stance. not to mention the starbucks.

we went inside new leaf market and found many vegan products we enjoy in LA that we never saw when we lived in santa cruz. did they just get these or did we never really look before? damn, we could move back! it was just an adrenaline rush to be there and see those options. things i thought were more LA local only goods had made it all the way up there. then twiddle thumbs found vegan marshmallows for sale and got so excited that she threw the bag at me and i wasn't paying attention. i instinctively caught the bag but they must've been made out of bricks because they cracked my nail and it tore down to the sensitive part. at least it didn't bleed.