Spring Break- Part 3

After our time in Monterey, we headed on back toward Santa Cruz. We stopped in Capitola along the way. There was a mall there and we did a little shopping. After a good amount of time browsing through the stores, we got back on the road and went back to Santa Cruz.


Santa Cruz has a board walk with rides and and an arcade. Because it was the off tourist season and during the week, the rides were all shut down but the arcade was open.


So, we decided to live it up like big kids in the arcade. Above, Dwayne is punching some game that measures your punch strength. It was kind of neat. After we were done playing our games we counted our tickets in the ticket counter machine and gave our ticket total to some little boy that was in the arcade with his parents. He was pretty happy!

This is part of the boardwalk with the entrance to the arcades.

It runs along the beach. There were a lot of people on this beach!

Also inside the arcade building was a mini-golf course.

It was actually pretty impressive. It was pirate themed and was spread through out two different stories and in and out of a black light tunneled room.

There's Dwayne taking a break from putting to drive the ship

And here I am driving the ship. We had a lot of fun being big kids. Even though the roller coaster rides weren't open we were still able to have a lot of fun our last night on vacation.

On our last morning in Santa Cruz we headed downstairs to our hotel-included breakfast before we hit the road.

The choices were delicious and it was nice having a meal before we driving back.

Dwayne is getting our car all ready for the drive back home.

Packed up and ready to go we take a picture before we get ready to head home. It was so nice to get away. We already have our next weekend get away picked out and now we just have to find the weekend to do it! It involves caves, a zip line and a little bit of hiking! We can't wait.....

Spring Break- Part 2

So, after we completed our tour at The Mystery Spot, we decided to take a drive toward Monterey and spend some time on the beach.

We found a pretty open area and decided to take walk along the water and just feel the ocean air.


The sand was warm but the water was cold!


At this particular beach there were signs posted that it was a dangerous beach and that it has been known to have large waves and unpredictable rip tides and to enter water at one's own risk. Guess it was a good thing we hadn't planned on going swimming isn't it?

Should I go in the water? Nah, think I'll stay dry, and warm!


It was so pretty in this area. On the beach were a few families building sand castles and flying kites. It was fun just watching them have a good time!


You gotta' write in the sand when you're at the beach!


Well, we aren't that original but, the T + D = love was kind of the theme of our writing in the sand. :)

Can you see the waves? They could get kind of large.

This is a little more original, our name! Well, I wrote it in the sand and then about 30 seconds later, it was gone. The water rushed up so fast I had to run away from it to not get wet! Dwayne got a good laugh out of the rushing water. Those unpredictable waves!

We love spending time on the beach! It is one of our favorite places to have lunch or just take a walk.

Great sun, great weather, great company, great day at the beach!

We left our footprints....

....and our hand prints. Bet you can't guess which one is mine and which one is Dwayne's!

After our lazy time on the beach we headed down to have lunch at Monterey's Wharf. Lots of seafood options that was for sure, but we aren't really seafood people so we settled on a pub and had delicious burgers and steak fries! It was soooooo yummy and we had the whole place to ourselves!

After we had food in our tummies we decided to check out the shops. In our exploration we found this guy who draws character portraits. We decided to get an updated one of the two of us. I went first.

Then it was Dwayne's turn. The picture turned out well. We plan on hanging on it on our "fun" wall in the house.

We also found this little candy shop. Inside they sold chocolate covered strawberries, one of Dwayne's favorites! Of course, we got one for him to have!

He really enjoyed it!

Another great part of our vacation. We had fun looking at all the different boats that were docked and viewing all the tourist items in the shops. The food was good too! We definitely plan on coming back to Monterey and spending more time in this area. It was time for our next activities of the trip!

Spring Break 2010- Part 1

Spring break for us kicked off March 21. Since it had been 8 weeks of no days off for me, and 8 weeks of time that Dwayne and I had not had together, we booked a room in California and decided to go somewhere and do something for spring break. Dwayne booked us a room in Santa Cruz and on Sunday morning, March 21st after I was off work, we loaded up and headed out of town. We spent some time running errands in Reno and then drove onward to the outlet mall at Vacaville. We shopped, bought some new things and then continued our drive on to Santa Cruz.



Dwayne booked us a very nice room.




After getting a good night's sleep we got up and got ready to head out and see what the Cali coast had to offer!

Our first stop was "The Mystery Spot" a local tourist attraction in the Santa Cruz area. Apparently it has been featured on various scientific shows and is a phenomenon of sorts.

These two are perfectly level. They are standing on perfectly level ground, complete with a leveler to prove it.

Then they switched spots, and the stranger went into what is known as "the mystery spot" and suddenly he was way shorter than Dwayne, even though the ground is perfectly level.

Up the hill inside the mystery spot is a tool shed that the original owner of the land built. This place made it look like you were all sideways and the gravity pull was weird. You were feeling kind of dizzy too when you walked up the hill to get here. Aside from the gravitational pull we are pretty sure this part of the place was simply an optical illusion.

The tour guide put a wood plank on the windowsill and rolled this ball on it. It rolled uphill! He gave it to Dwayne to inspect and make sure it was a legit pool ball.

He even rolled my lip gloss on the wooden plank to show that they hadn't set it up funny or anything.

After they gave us the spill about the lay of the land and the history behind the tool shed we were allowed to roam around inside and take pictures.

Dwayne got his lean on by standing on the table and leaning toward the ground. Usually if you were to lean this far on a normal table and area you would fall over, but not in the mystery spot.

Next it was my turn to get my lean on!

They had different places you could stand and go against gravity inside the shed.

Some very nice guys offered to take our picture together for us. It was definitely difficult to walk around inside "the mystery spot."

In this picture the tour guide pulled three people from the group to stand on the spots. The difference between where Dwayne is standing and the child is standing is only about 2 inches. The side Dwayne is standing on is the taller side.

Look at the major difference when they switched spots!

So then the guide paired the two who were closer in height on the spot.

And then they switched and the guy shrank big time!

At the end of the tour you get a bumper sticker and there is a gift shop you can look around in. They encourage everyone to revisit the site and bring their own levelers to check the ground and also to bring their own compass because at certain areas in the mystery spot the compass gets thrown out of whack with the different directions not being right.

The mystery spot was kind of secluded inside this tree heavy area.

The road behind Dwayne is the road we had to drive on to get to the spot. That skinny little road was a two way road! It was in between trees and wasn't level, it was kind of scary! But, then again, the trees were beautiful! After the mystery spot it was time for our next adventure!