Stick a Fork in Me...

I'm done... Or I was after Santa Cruz. Nice and crispy at least. I haven't had a sunburn like that in, oh, ever! And yes, we wore sunscreen. Waterproof even. Of course, it might have helped if we'd reapplied at some point during the day. You'd think we'd be smarter, collectively. Even my darker skinned Philipina friend got a little burn, in a spot that was covered by her suit at the time she applied the sunscreen (not anywhere as bad as the rest of us, who were sadly red, and in pain).

So, a week later, I am a bit tan, except for that patch on my back (that wasn't covered by my hair, spf 1000) that is still itching and not done peeling.

Burning aside, we had a great time. We started off after work Friday night by heading over to Chevy's for cheap happy hour eats and to skip rush hour traffic. Even though there was an accident on 17, we made it to Santa Cruz in less than 2 hours. And time passed quickly, what with our in-car vocal performances (Kristin, you would have gotten out of the car and walked the rest of the way). We got to the b&b (a realtor's in-law unit above their garage, but she called it a b&b, because they stock the fridge for your breakfast - and then some) and the proprietor offered to let us use her Garmin GPS for our weekend, at no charge! This because I was happy that she showed us a map to the local beaches, and mentioned to my friends that we could use that on Saturday to get to Monterey.

Saturday morning we got up early, yes - even me - to go whale watching out of Monterey. We got there in time (had to be there by 8:30am, for the 9am sailing), and headed out on the bay. There were a lot of CA sea lions on the rocks right on the coast, and some sea birds (the name of which I can't remember). We stopped at Moss Landing, over a deep underwater canyon, and waited for the action to begin. We got a little show from Curly the Humpback whale, but didn't see any other whales or dolphins. (There is no guarantee that any animals will surface during the trip.) A cute sea lion put on a little show for us. We saw some Harbor Seals (I think), and some sea otters.

Check out how close Curly came to the fishing boat!

Later, when heading back, one of my friends (the one who REALLY wanted to go whale watching, we'll call her Y) ended up quite seasick - thank goodness there was a restroom on the boat. Another of the friends felt queasy (let's call her Z), but I convinced her to go lay down in the galley, where she fell asleep. She felt fine when she woke up, right before we were back at the dock. Y fell asleep after getting sick and felt a little better after that (I would have spent the rest of the day laying down in the car recovering, or at least an hour or so). After getting off the boat, we all walked down the pier looking for a good place for lunch (Y didn't protest, and we asked to make sure she was up for food). We ended up having some excellent clam chowder.

After lunch, we visited some shops and made some little purchases. We all ended up buying the same shirt (it's totally cute!). You just can't argue good taste.

I watched our purses while my friends made a makeshift dressing room. I took this when they didn't know it was coming. Muahahahhahahaaa.

After our shopping spree, we attempted to use the Garmin to find a Starbucks. Aside from the coffee/chai buzz that Z and I were craving, we needed a large accomodating bathroom where we could all change into our swimsuits for the beach. We circled around downtown for a while before finding a free parking spot, then Y asked to girls walking by where the Starbucks was. They informed us that it was around the corner, but had burned down a few weeks ago. Naturally! So, we ended up at the mall, where we changed in the Macy's large ladies room, and Z and I got our Starbucks fix.

We spent the next few hours at the beach, fighting the waves and enjoying the sand and sun. We didn't even burn that day (except for the small bit of pink on my and Z's faces from the boat ride). After the beach, we headed back downtown for dinner and found that there was some big motorcycle to-do, sponsored by Red Bull, going on in the middle of the main strip. We stood around the barricades for a while waiting for some action, but we were hungry and tired, so headed off for food. After dinner, they were on another break before the last performance, and we had lost our prime spots, so we headed back to Santa Cruz.

Sunday we slept in until about 9:30am, then ate a liesurely breakfast out on the back balcony before packing up all of our stuff to checkout. Then we headed to one of the state beaches and hung out until dinner time. My mother would be freaked out to know how far into the ocean we swam - riding the waves. Though we all got taken out by the waves a time or two. And that salt-water will clear your sinuses, given a chance. And Y and I learned not to stand too close to Z when a wave is coming, because once she's under, Z will grab onto anything trying to get up out of the water. She almost got my suit bottoms at one point (I got them back into proper position before the wave fully receded), and Y's top at another. My joke was that Z was trying to get a whole new suit by the end of the trip. Of course, we know that was not really her intention.

After the beach, it was dinner on the waterfront before heading back home.

Dinner. Notice the pre-burn on the 3 white chicks? There was no hiding the trip from the uninvited co-workers come Monday!

We had a great time though, and it was worth the burn. Would have been that much better without it...but still a great time. No in-fighting or anything (got to love that!). But, what more would you expect from a group consisting of 2 Virgos and 2 Tauruses (Tauri?).