Hello fellow Adventurers! It's been a while since we posted a new adventure and it feels good to be back in the swing of things. We've been sitting on this trip since the middle of October. On this trip Camping Girl and I hit the coast around Santa Cruz, just because we could. So here we go!
It all started when Camping Girl had a couple of days free from work during the middle of the week. We packed up the Forester with Camping Girls new 4 season tent and our normal gear and headed towards Santa Cruz. We normally go to to Sunset Beach Campground, but Camping Girl has camped at New Brighton Beach many times and I'm always one to go to new places. As I always say "getting here is easy". From Sacramento the drive is around 150 miles, for us it it's around 170. Take Hwy 80 west towards San Francisco then take the Hwy 680 South exit towards Benicia. Follow 680 south toward San Jose. As you come down the grade into Silicon Valley you will stay on 680, as you come into San Jose 680 turns into Hwy 280. Continue on Hwy 280 until you reach Hwy 880 south (which is actually Hwy 17). Once on Hwy 17 south continue through the twisty Hwy for approximately 23 miles until you come to California Hwy 1 south exit towards Monterey/Watsonville. Once on Hwy 1 south go almost 5 miles and then exit onto Park Avenue. Make a right onto Park drive and then take your first left onto McGregor Drive. Go around the bend and you will see the entrance for New Brighton State Park on your right.
Google map of our New Brighton SB adventure
Normally we drive up to the park entrance and let the ranger know we will be staying the night and then they let us drive though the campgrounds to pick our site. After we scope the place out and pick our site we come back and pay for our stay. Not here not on this day, and as we found out this is now longer an option at this campground. Apparently they have changed their protocol and we were told we would have to park our car and walk in a 1/4 mile to pick our site. In all of Camping Girls stays here at this campground this was abnormal and from what we encountered this will now be the norm.
Because we arrived in the middle of the week and off-season there were plenty of sites to choose from. We chose site 23. Due to the removal of trees the only sites that were available were sites 1-34. We liked our site because it was close to the beach so we could hear the waves crashing instead of the highway traffic. And as we found out later, our site was also the racoon on-ramp to the campground. We set up C.G's new tent for the first time in the outdoors. It was pretty easy and next time it will go up in a flash. After our site was situated we jumped in the Subie and went to get a snack and some refreshments at Safeway. Camping Girl as usual knew where to find good eats. She took me to this pizza place called Showtime Pizza located at 98 Rancho Del Mar, Aptos. I must say the pizza was awesome! It was just like the pizza in NYC. thin crust and all. After our bellies were happy and our shopping done we headed back to the campground. We introduced ourselves to our neighbor Pavel who was staying for the night just like us.
I preped the firepit for later that night while C.G. finished setting up our gear in the tent. Afterwards we headed off towards Capitola. The walk to Capitola is only a 20+minute walk from the campgound and "getting there is easy". From the campground walk down the stairs to the beach. At the beach there's a bathroom and a day use area that has firepits. From the beach head towards the right up to the day use parking lot. When you get to the parking lot look for the trail that goes up towards the train tracks. Once at the train tracks follow them to the left all the way to Monterey Avenue, where you go left down the hill into downtown Capitola. There are many boutique shops and restaurants to enjoy as you stroll through town.
When we got back from Capitola I put my backpack that had a bag of Flaming Hot Cheeto's in it on the table while we pulled the cooking gear and cooler from the car. When I came back to the picnic table my backpack was now open and the Cheetoh's were in the paws of a few clever racoons. Dam racoons! We were looking forward to snacking on those bad boys after dinner. After the theives left I put on the Sharks Hockey game on our little battery powered speakers while we cooked up some dogs & beans on our Coleman Stove. I lit the fire and minutes later we were eating fireside. After dinner we envited Pavel over to listen to the game and hang out with us to share an evening of racoon meyhem. Low and behold after just a few minutes a hoard of racoons came up from the gully that was between us and the beach. Holly mackerel were there a lot, there must have been over 20 of them and they showed no fear. They came right up to the picnic table and fire like it was just another day at the office. And at once point in time there was also a skunk but he seemed more interested in Pavel's campsite. Hee, hee. We eventually gave up the fight trying to scare them off and went to bed.
The following morning we were pleasantly awoken by the subtle sounds of chainsaws. Apparently they start at 7am. Since sleeping was no longer an option I climbed out of the tent and made myself a cup of espresso/Swiss Miss and watched the crews fell trees from a distance. We decided after breakfast we would walk down to the park entrance and pay for our site for another night. On our way there the tree crew had blocked the parking area near the dump station so that they could fall a pretty big tree. I decided to take some pictures so I positioned myself to the right of the tractor blocking the road and the dump station. Not the best idea I found out. Apparently the tree crew thought that the tree was going to fall short of the powerlines I was standing under. Not so much. If you look at the last couple of pictures I took of the tree falling you will see the powerline starting to whip after being yanked from the transformer that was behind me. Luckily when I heard the whipping sound I moved to the right and as I did the power line whipped past me and landed on the ground approximately 40' in front of me catching the grass on fire. All you could hear was loud buzzing of the live line and the crew shouting profanities. Needless to say we quickly turned around and found another way out to the park entrance.
When we made it to the park kiosk to pay for another night the Ranger on duty had no idea that there was any problem in the park. But she did point across the parking lot over to where just a few minutes before a car had driven off the road.If it weren't for a small tree the car would have fallen over the concrete retaining wall and blocked the road just before you go under the railroad tracks.
When we got back to our campsite we loaded up our backpacks and headed down to the beach, made a left and continued south down New Brighton Beach towards Seacliff. On our way down the beach we passed the Seacliff RV Campground. There we saw several emergency vehicles by the restrooms. We found out later when we got home that a surfer had been attacked by a shark a few beaches down and that a Great White was spotted a 1/4 mile off the beach here at Seacliffe while we were there.
Past the fire trucks and the Seacliff RV campground we came to the Concrete Ship "Palo Alto". The Palo Alto was built in Oakland in 1919. She was built using concrete due to steel shortages created by WW1. After the Palo Alto was constructed she remained in Oakland until 1929 when she was purchased by the Seacliff Amusement Company with the idea of making her into an amusement and fishing ship. After she arrived at her current location they opened her seacocks and she settled to the ocean floor. After months of construction the pier was finished, the ship revamped and was ready by the summer of 1930. Only after two seasons financial difficulties forced the Seacliff Amusement Company to close the Palo Alto. Her decks were stripped and since then she was only used for fishing. The ship cracked and came apart just a year after she was closed due to heavy winter storms and she continues to slowly give a little of herself back to the ocean every day.
Following the sand a little furter south we came to Rio Del Mar. We didn't go down to the beach here because our stomachs we're steering us inland towards the Pixie Deli. Our stomachs ROCK! This little seaside deli should definately should be on your list of places visit. If you check the deli out through Yelp you will only see great reviews. The food and service are awesome! Our food was delish and I should tell you what we had, but I won't because anything you order I'm sure you'll love. We sat on the patio enjoying our food and soaked up the sun. After enjoying our luch we hiked back up the beach to our campsite, packed our day packs and drove accross Hwy 1 to Nisene Marks SP. Download Pixie Deli Menu
Nisene Marks SP is one of my favorite stops whenever we camp down here. From most of the beach campgrounds we stay at this redwood forest is only a 20minute drive away. Like most redwood forests in california we can enjoy them today due to the foresight and gifts of many people. I want to thank the many families and individuals who have either granted land or given their time so that we Californian's can hop in our cars and drive only a few hours no matter where we live in the state and stand beneath these wonders of nature. I'm smitten with them, can you tell? Here you can hike for miles enjoying ferns, old redwood growth, 89' Loma Prieta Earthquake Epicenter, if you look close enough you willt see many redwood stumps that are remnants of the logging days. These stumps will have slots cut out for the boards the loggers used to stand on while sawing the tree's down by hand. Our goal was the find the earthquake epicenter.We kept on hiking thinking it was just right around the next corner, but we came up empty. We found out later that to take Aptos Creek Trail to the epicenter you must cross the little creek. We ended up hiking much further up the main trail, almost 1.5 miles past where we should have crossed the creek. By the time we decided to turn around it was about 15 minutes until sunset so we didn't continue exploring. I must say we did have an enjoyable stroll through the forest.
Download Forest of Nisene Marks pdf
We woke up the next morning, made coffee, packed up camp and headed up towards Santa Cruz to see the sights. We passed the Boardwalk and continued up Cliff Drive to try our luck with butterflies. Natural Bridges SB is just a short ways past Lighthouse Field SB. Here at Natural Bridges you can see Monarch Butterflies in their winter habitat. They normally arrive in October and can be seen as late as March. The Monarchs have chosen this spot because the Eucalyptus Tree flowers in winter and is a good food source. The canyon also provides shelter from the elements. If you get here early enough you can see the butterflies in large groups among the eucalyptus trees, they do this to stay warm until the temperature rises above 60 deg. By the visitors center you can also enjoy a demonstration milkweed patch where you can see Monarch eggs, caterpillars and chrysalides. There is also a nice beach area with tidepools to view if your feeling so inclined. The parks hours are from 8am-Sunset.
We left the Monarchs and drove back down to Lighthouse Field State Beach. On our way to the butterflies we saw that there was a surfing contest going on here and I had never watched one in person, pretty cool I must say. Apparently it was even being telecasted. We didn't get to see many surfers due to the waves not co-operating but that didn't seem to put a damper on the mood of the crowd. While strolling around the lighthouse we came accross this guy at the lighthouse point making and selling some really neat seaglass sculptures. They had succulents and hand made copper wire trees that were imbedded in the beach rocks holes. Next time we're here we'll bring some extra $$ so that we may aquire one of his sculptures.
We left the Subie parked at the lighthouse and walked along the cliff down to the wharf to grab a bite to eat. We walked almost to the end of the warf. The restaurant we ate at was Stagnaro's which is the last two story building as you walk to the end of the wharf. We liked the fact that Stagnaro's has an outdoor eating area upstairs where you could enjoy unobstructed views of the ocean. On the north side there are many table to sit at, but at the time they were all taken. I was hoping to be able to watch the surfing contest as we ate. Fortunately, someone else have better plans for us. We ended up being seated at the only table on the south side of the deck. We ordered some calamari and clam chowder. The sun was shinning and it sure felt good. While we waited for our food to arrive we noticed a lot of kayakers and sea lions cruising around the end of the pier. Camping Girl all of a sudden got real excited, she spotted a couple of whales just off the wharf about 100 yards away from where we sat. Our quiet side of the deck became a frenzy of whale watchers. At one point we must of had 20 people standing almost on top of us trying to get a good view. While we ate the whales breached the water a few times. We had our binoculars with us which came in handy. We sat and enjoyed the whales, dolphins, sea lions, kayakers and warm sun for a couple hours. What a way to finish our three day adventure.
We toured five State Parks and witnessed some pretty amazing stuff. We now have some great memories that will last a lifetime. Camping Girl and I hope you enjoyed our adventure and hope to cross paths with you and your family.
Uncle Leo & Camping Girl
Here are the links to the parks we visited on this trip:
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