I mentioned in my last post that following Felton LUG I went with Bob Lewis (and Peter Belew) over to Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park. It’s a beautiful park, that I later learned is much larger than the part week walked, with a number of trails and even a campground.
We ended up doing a pretty simple loop trail where I got to see a number of huge redwoods, and even one you could stand up inside, and enjoy the fresh forest air. Throughout the walk Bob and Peter shared tech stories from work Bell Labs and SCO to recent successes with converting users to Ubuntu.
After the trail, it was over to the railroad inside the park, Roaring Camp Railroads. It features a pair of trains, a narrow-gauge steam train (pictured below) that goes up the mountain and a diesel train that takes people to the boardwalk in Santa Cruz. It was pretty tempting to take the diesel train and tell MJ to take the car and meet me in Santa Cruz!
After these forest adventures, MJ and I left Felton to spend the evening in Santa Cruz. The last time we were in Santa Cruz was on our way to Monterey Bay back in November, when we stopped downtown for a quick lunch. I’d never actually been to the boardwalk, so we took full advantage of being down there to finally visit it.
It was quite the touristy boardwalk, but in all the best ways. I was impressed with how clean it was kept (there was boardwalk staff cleaning up constantly, including in the public rest rooms). We ended up at the nearby Casablanca Inn and Bistro for dinner, where, along with some delicious burgers, they had a great raw sea bass appetizer special.
After dinner, it was time for some boardwalk fun. We took the Sky Glider which gives you an overhead view of the whole boardwalk. It was then on to the Ferris wheel.
While we were there, I knew I had to ride on their big, old wooden roller coaster, the Giant Dipper. I’d never actually ridden a roller coaster on a boardwalk before, and this one was no disappointment. I’ve also grown in my appreciation of old wooden coasters since I learned that the relatively recent get-sick-when-riding-coasters affliction only applies to ones that go upside down (so, none of the wooden ones).
After the coaster we found some dessert (I went with a chocolate-covered banana, which was actually one of the healthier options) and took a walk on the beach. We left Santa Cruz around 9:30PM.
More photos from the day are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pleia2/sets/72157630589008812/
Today my plans have been much less exciting, but much more productive. Spent the morning on email, some Xubuntu and UWN work, and then spent some time on the roof deck catching up on a couple magazines. This evening we have a very long list of things we need to do, including grocery shopping. I also need to unpack from our Maine trip and start getting my things together for another trip… to Portland, Oregon. Based on some recent news (I’ll elaborate when I return) I decided to go up to OSCON to attend the conference on Thursday and Friday. The flight is booked, leaving Wednesday evening, but I still need to find a hotel room (all the conference-rate hotels are booked!). I am staying through Saturday evening so I have the opportunity to also meet up with a couple friends from Portland who I’ve known online for quite some time. Should be an interesting trip, and my first opportunity to attend part of OSCON!