Every climbing gym is a little different in the way that routes are set, so it's always exciting to check out a new space. Pacific Edge is a busy rock climbing gym, and a couple times all the top ropes have been in use and we've had to wait our turn to start climbing the walls. There are multiple slab walls to take advantage of whereas we're used to only having one slab wall at our gym. The gym posts the Yosemite rating on the routes, so we've been challenging ourselves with some higher rated routes like 5.11's. Brandon even projected a 5.12a. We're not used to climbing three or more times per week, so it's a good test to our endurance.
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| Brandon belaying Becky |
After climbing we've enjoyed cooking some simple, fast meals together. As mentioned before we've had some awesome vegetarian tacos made by Becky. We've contributed some salad, a zucchini pasta dish, and grilled cheese sandwiches. It's not fancy, but it's been a great part of our time together.
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| Homemade vegetarian tacos |
We've also been able to hang out with some of Becky's good friends Sarah, Brianne, and Carl. They watch and make fun of The Bachelor once a week, so we've been welcomed into that tradition. Admittedly, The Bachelor isn't really our thing, but hanging out with good company is.
On Friday night we went out with Becky and her friends into downtown Santa Cruz. There was a Latte Art Throwdown we wanted to check out hosted by a downtown workspace called Cosmic. So many people attended that it was hard to see the latte art. But we discovered that looking into one of the windows from the outside of the building provided a decent view of the event. Two people competed against each other at a time in a bracket-style set up until one person was declared the best latte artist.
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| Crowded Latte Art Throwdown |
The competition was part of a community event in Santa Cruz called First Fridays. On the first Friday of the month area businesses provide entertainment and free food and/or drinks to lure people in (and probably hope they buy something). The Latte Art Throwdown provided free cookies and beer or coffee. Amazing! Another shop offered a vodka mixed drink and its sister store offered a bourbon based mix. For FREE! Crazy! It was fun to walk around and sample all the things. Santa Cruz and Becky are trying their best to keep us around.
After wandering around First Friday venues we stopped for a taco snack at El Palomar Taco Bar. It was a popular place, probably because chips and salsa are provided for free even if you only purchase one taco. California is a paradise for taco lovers. Delicious.
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| El Palomar tacos, chips, and salsa |
Of course, Becky isn't free all the time. When she works during the day we've found plenty to do. With all the cooking we've checked out the Safeway and Trader Joe's multiple times. Trader Joe's in particular has been fun to explore and is surprisingly more affordable than Safeway for many products. We have a Trader Joe's in Grand Rapids now, but we haven't been around to take full advantage of it. I'm sure we will when we return.
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| Our collection of Trader Joe's bags |
Most of the time we've been cooking, but we did go out to lunch once last week. We checked out a taco place (no surprise there) called Salsas. The tacos were so loaded with meat that even Brandon couldn't finish and had to take one home with him. There was a salsa bar there with five salsas to choose from, and we appreciated all three that we sampled. We may have to return with Becky sometime.
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| Tacos loaded with al pastor meat |
We've also tried to take a good walk most days and enjoy the California sunshine. One day we walked the trail along the river in downtown Santa Cruz and wandered around the boardwalk area. We were drawn into the Monterey Bay Exploration Center because of their giant free admissions sign. We ended up being the only visitors there, so the staff took quite an interest in us. We managed to sneak out after watching their informational video which was actually pretty interesting.
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| Monterey Bay Exploration Center |
Mission Springs is also a lovely place to explore. We walked through one of the camp areas up the hill from our house called Frontier Ranch. After getting a bit turned around and going the wrong direction we eventually found our way back to the house. There were plenty of interesting sights and beautiful landscape to entertain us on the way.
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| We found a tree swing at Mission Springs |
One of the best walks we've taken so far was along West Cliff Drive in Santa Cruz. The day we went out was sunny and warm as we walked along the cliff edge that plunges down to the ocean. There was a lot of people watching to be done and beautiful vistas to take in. It was highly entertaining and gorgeous. We saw surfers riding some small waves in one area and some more intimidating waves in another section. The water is quite cold, so everyone was wearing full body wet suits. As we watched some of the larger waves hit the rocky shore line below, we could feel and taste their salty spray. The cliff edge was full of greenery and yellow flowers from a slight respite in the drought that Santa Cruz has had. It was truly lovely, and we've vowed to return for a picnic on the beach.
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| Bright green, flowering cliffs |
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| The easier surf area with the wharf in the background |
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| The tougher surf area with more violent waves |
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| Feeling the spray from the crashing waves |
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| It was a lovely day to walk West Cliff Drive |
We have plenty more places to explore in the next couple weeks. Stay tuned for more adventures. In fact we already took a rock climbing trip to Pinnacles National Park this past weekend that we'll have to cover in another blog post.
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