Santa Cruz: City by the Sea
(Outside my room in the chalet-like building in the midst of the giant redwood forests of the University of California at Santa Cruz)
Santa Cruz is a neat little city by the sea–by the Bay, really, MOnterrey Bay, at whose head it nestles quietly in the midst of soft fogs that swirls in at dawn and dusk each day.
A drive around the town revealed to me the interesting topography as well as the financial range of its inhabitants. Hugging the cliffs that dip steeply into the Pacific are expensive homes of varying design from Spanish-style haciendas and Santa Fe-style adobes to New England-style McMansions with all the bells and whistles. Sprucely landscaped gardens welcomed the visitors to these homes down neat paths to front doors that were splashed by salt spray. Ah, the privileges of the wealthy.
Most of the people of Santa Cruz, however, live in modest homes along the hillsides. All action begins and ends at the beach which, in the manner of most English seaside resorts, has a lengthy pier that juts far out into the water. The rewards of walking all the way to the very end of the pier is the bellowing and sighting of sea lions who haul themselves out on the wooden scaffolding of the pier to rest from their endless swimming. I realized why they are called ‘lions’ when I heard them roar. Turning their heads upwards, they let out these great belly-turning grunts for no reason at all, then calmly turn over and settle down. It must be a disquieting sound in the dead of night.
The pier is lined with shops selling cheap souvenirs, cotton candy, ice-cream and hotdogs—the predictable detritus of most American beach resorts. The water was not warm enough for a comfortable dip—which explains why most people were sunbathing and so few were actually in the water, though Santa Cruz is a popular surfing destination.
Its biggest attraction, however, apart from the boardwalk, is the amusement park on the edge of the sea where the country’s oldest roller coaster still gives bone-rattling rides to those who enjoy such thrills. The roller coaster is wooden and, though by today’s standards, its height is pretty unimpressive, I have long lost my appetite for such amusements. Those, like me, too chicken to brave the dips and climbs of a traditional roller coaster can opt for a much tamer ride that takes one along the periphery of the shore, the dangling baskets skimming under waves and sand at the same time.
For those with more sophisticated tastes, Santa Cruz does boast a few nice restaurants. We had dinner one night at Casablanca, a restaurant overlooking the seashore, where the entrée, a Salmon in a creamy citrus sauce was very delicious indeed and the dessert, a Chocolate Mousse Pie was absolutely scrumptious. On other evenings, I ate at O Mei, a Chinese restaurant with the most amazing selection of Asian fusion dishes, all of which were outstanding. Another evening found me at Avanti, an Italian restaurant that I found to be good if vastly over-priced. It is possible to eat out adventurously in Santa Cruz. For most other lovers of shopping, the venue is Pacific Avenue, a chic street with designer boutiques, museums and art galleries, selling everything from hip clothing and custom designed burgers to antiques and collectibles.
My biggest kick, however, came from exploring the Robert Cowell State Park (left), about a half hour from Santa Cruz, to which my colleague Jeff Spear drove me. Though there were abundant giant redwood trees on campus itself, these were dwarfed by the proportions of the ones I saw in the Cowell Woods. I realized how the Lilliputians might have felt when they gazed up at Gulliver during his Travels. The word ‘tall’ would be a gigantic (pun unintended) understatement with which to describe them. They tower immensely above one’s head, their collective skimpy branches reaching out for the sun’s rays. This leaves most of the tree branchless. They also tend to grow in circles—like many baby trees surrounding the main mother tree. This gives the entire forest the appearance of a land inhabited by druids, or other creatures from some prehistoric past. We saw on display part of a tree trunk hacked out from out of a tree that was 3,500 years old. Visitors who exclaim “Jesus” when they see the trees for the first time are told, “Only one thousand five hundred years before His time to be exact”. YOu can see me below drawfed by the colossal tree trunks.
For those interested in such exploration, the campus of the University of California at Santa Cruz where I taught a summer course as a Visiting Professor is indeed a good place to visit. Apart from its location–perched up ligh in the mountains and overlooking Monterrey Bay on the one side and the Pacific Ocean on the other–it is set in the midst of giant redwood forests which are enchanting at dawn and dusk when fog enshrouds the branches and whispers softly about early risers. Its many trails are ideal for hiking but beware, as the signs say, “of mountain lions”. That put paid to any plans I had to hike on my own in the woods.
Santa Cruz is a charming town indeed and particularly well geared to meet the needs of children. For me, a week spent in its cozy embrace was enough as I hightailed it off north along the spectacular Pacific Coast Highway to San Francisco.
Bon Voyage!