Santa Cruz

Well, this past weekend we went to Santa Cruz, joining the Sac State Marching Band on their tour. The band played at the Santa Cruz band (parade) festival, a standstill on the beach prior to the festival awards ceremony. It was a pretty good trip, the band played well and the rain held off at least until the festival was done.

Though for some reason I just didn't sleep too well. Even at the Hilton, which was quite a nice hotel.

But we stayed an extra night after the band left Saturday evening, in a hotel right on the beach, and got to spend some time exploring the area a bit. It's an odd town, Santa Cruz. The kind of place where bums wedge themselves into small garbage cans with the lid still on and panhandle for change. The kind of place where other bums wander into a pizza joint and strike up a conversation with folks at a table, and those folks get up to go get a to-go box to send the guy away with some food. The kind of place where folks talk on their cell phones on the beach, wearing heavy cold weather clothing but with open-toed sandals.

We got to walk along the beach Sunday morning, and marvel at the crashing waves and cliff-like edges of sandy beach being eroded away by the water. It certainly is calm and peaceful there...when the boardwalk isn't open yet. I'm not much into the boardwalk really; to me it's just a run-down dumpy Disneyland. But it's good I guess, for it's purpose. We walked a good distance and made it all the way to the Walton lighthouse before turning back.

Woody's on the Wharf, by the way, is a cool place to grab some lunch, and includes lovely ocean and coastline views. It was raining by then, on Sunday afternoon, and rained most of the way home as well. But hey, it was a nice weekend getaway.

Now back to the grind, and The Wiz is looming around the corner...