Super Secret Beach and Redwoods

Hot mamas

We've been enjoying perfect weather this summer here in the Bay Area.  Windham and I took a week day trip to a beach near Santa Cruz (because Santa Cruz is incredibly, ridiculously-- incrediculously-- packed) with some girl friends.  We all recently moved from Utah and had our first child within weeks of each other.  I secretly call them the Trophy Wives Club--not because they're dumb, but because they're so gorgeous.  But I need to come up with a better name...  The beach was clean and quiet, and the public restroom and free beach front parking make it my favorite California beach so far. 

We also recently took a family trip (Mario, Windham, Prince, and me,) to Henry Cowell State Park to see the mini redwoods.  The "real" ones are much farther away.  After being told that dogs aren't allowed on the trails (UGH!!!  Dogs aren't allowed anywhere in this state!) we left Prince at the Visitor's Center while we took a leisurely stroll through the trees.  Our guide was pretty obnoxious, though.  Our group was mostly young families with little kids and strollers, and we were all going pretty slow (because kids have shorter legs than adults) and stopping to take pictures.  But our guide kept yelling at the little kids to stop running ahead of her (she wanted to make sure we heard every word of her tour) and chiding us all for getting her off "schedule," even though we were the only group of the day, and there was no one else on the trail.  But aside from that, the beauty and tranquility of park were refreshing.  We plan to go back and ride the train.

But this trip was definitely more for Mario and me than for Windham, because although he enjoyed the stroller ride, I don't think his depth perception was developed enough to see the trees.  The highlight for him was a redwood twig he found that we let him drool on for a while.

We'll definitely be returning soon to both the beach and the redwoods.