Spring Break: Santa Cruz, Calif.

We spent Sunday of our 4 day weekend at Santa Cruz, Calif. Here is how a city boy goes to the beach. Behind him is the boardwalk with amusement park. Somewhere in that park my sons are testing every amusement ride. That gives us a few hours to relax on the beach.

Here is how an expert makes sunning on the beach look effortless.

(click pictures for larger image, then "back" key to return to blog)

I went for a walk. I was looking for color and shapes that I might use in weaving. Weaving is teaching me to look at things differently than I would in the past. Here is a creek that flows from the town and empties into the ocean. I wanted to save the colors of the greenery on the bluff. People are always interesting. In this one picture are a few smaller scenes that could be a subject. Especially that lighthouse on the right hand side. That lighthouse guards the entrance to the marina.


Turning to the right and looking out across the water, you can see many of the boats that came out of the marina and are now sailing Monterey Bay. The camera caught some sunlight on the lense which caused some uneveness in coloring, but I still like the color of sky, the people's clothes (like the little kid in red shorts and blue hat), and the dark shape of the land across the bay.


Turning a little more right and looking south, that is Monterey about 25 miles across the bay. I tried to capture the water color in the wave on the left. The kid with the football provides action, as does the couple on the right. The pier on the right is the wharf which has many shops and restaurants. You can rent fishing gear and fish off the pier. We took many pictures there but many are unusable for the blog.

Camera problems caused us to lose a bunch of pictures. Here is an example. This model of a boat was on the pier. Too blurry. I can still use the color reference and shape though. We bought a cheapie digital camera when the good camera died, but it was also hit and miss.



When we came back from the pier, there was a long haired surfer dude (we used to call them hippies) selling these handmade flowers he wove from palm leaves. So I bought one as a souvenir. He says in a few weeks it will start to turn brown and in a few months it will be completely dried out. Then it will stay that color. I can hardly wait.


More fooling around with the camera. The flash works! It's okay, my sunglasses are polarized.

In this photo it's my eyes that are polarized.

That's all for now.

Have a joyful day!