Half Moon Bay, Pescadero, and some of Santa Cruz

We have now made our way to Hwy 1 and it's been great. No more car problems since I last blogged. It's been good. We stayed in Half Moon Bay for two days. The first night we boon docked at a Safeway parking lot. The parking lot sign said there was a three hour parking limit, but Half Moon Bay is a small town and we didn't think it would really be enforced. I had the hardest time falling asleep. I think I finally fell asleep at around 4am and then I woke up at 7am. A truck rolled up next to us that morning and then we heard someone on an intercom say, "Good morning! Did my truck wake you up?" There was no way I was going to look out the window. I thought, "I wonder if they are coming to kick us out of the parking lot?" I quickly got dressed because I needed to use the bathroom and I said to Alex, "It feels awkward coming out of the van right now because I can see a car parked in front of us with their head lights on." Well, as I looked closer at the car I realized it was a police car and the police man was standing out next to his car. Then another police car rolls up next to him. I said, "Alex I think it's time for us to leave or else the police are going to make us leave." Alex quickly got up and started up the engine. The two police men walked away. I kept my eye on them and saw them chatting for a bit and pointing at our van. They never ended up talking to us. So, who knows if they were coming to kick us out or not, but I don't think we are going to park in a lot over night that has time limited parking anymore.

Half Moon Bay Historic Jail

We took an extremely long walk along Half Moon Bay's coastal bike trail; probably 10 miles total. It was nice. Most of the time it was overcast, but the sun came out for a bit.

After Half Moon Bay, we made our way to Pescadero, but made a short stop in San Gregorio first. At the visitor's center in Half Moon Bay they suggested we stop in San Gregorio to see their General Store. The General Store consisted of a saloon, book store, bakery, clothing and grocery store all rolled in to one. I think it was the only store in the town because I didn't see any other stores around. It was cool and I bought a Mark Twain book consisting of 14 short stories written by him. I haven't started reading it, but I will soon.

On our map I saw that a road called Stage Rd takes you straight to Pescadero instead of getting back onto the Hwy. So, I told Alex to take it. Bad idea. It was a hecka, crazy, scary road. We shot a video of part of the road.

Pescadero was originally a resort town with two hotels and two saloons. It is not a resort town today, but basically that's all that is still there to this day with a few small additions.

Oldest standing church in the area

Pescadero Bakery

We stopped at Pigeon Point Lighthouse, which got it's name from a ship that was wrecked there. The ship was named the Carrier Pigeon and after the shipwreck the lighthouse got it's name. Back in the day when ships sailed more often there were a ton of shipwrecks in that area. At the lighthouse there was a display of some of the shipwrecks that had happened in that area. Most of the wrecks happened because of the dense fog. The captains of the ships would mistake the fog signal at the lighthouse for another ship and they would mistakenly turn toward the rocks to avoid what they thought was a ship, but instead they were headed straight towards doom. Or sometimes they actually would collide with another ship. One ship that sunk within 5 mins of crashing was a passenger ship and a lady on the ship had just sent a letter to relatives in San Fran explaining that she took the ship instead of the train because it was cheaper and her kids needed shoes. Only one child had survived that shipwreck. It is really kind of sad. Since there were so many shipwrecks, 59 lighthouses were built on California's coast. Pigeon Point lighthouse has been converted into a hostel, and the lighthouse itself needs a lot of work. The steel rings are eroding away and it needs a new coat of paint. Point Arena Lighthouse is in much better shape.

Pigeon Point Lighthouse

We are in Santa Cruz now and we went to the Natural Bridges State park yesterday. Every October Monarch butterflies migrate to this area for the winter. It was amazing. We saw hundreds of butterflies. They are attracted to the eucalyptus trees that are in that area. So, that was neat.

The swamp at Natural Bridges SP

A Natural Bridge

We also went to an awesome Farmer's market and got some pizza by the slice and some persimmons. It was so good.

We then went to the Santa Cruz beach boardwalk and played some games at the arcade and I won a ton tickets. I looked at all the stuff at the prize counter, but nothing seemed good enough to buy with my tickets. I had 703 tickets and I saw this girl, who was probably 9 years old, and she only had 180 tickets. She was deciding on what she should spend her tickets on. There wasn't much there you could buy with only 180 tickets. So, I gave her my tickets and she was so happy that she forgot to say thank you, but her mom reminded her to thank me. Alex and I ended up getting too many game tokens; we had $10 of tokens left, it was getting dark, and we still needed to walk back to our van, which was about a mile or more away. I looked around to find some lucky kid to give our tokens to. I saw this little boy, about 5 or 6 years old, and he had a few tokens in his hand. It looked like he wanted to play one of the arcade games, but it cost too many tokens to play. I tapped him on the shoulder and said, "Do you want $10 worth of tokens?" He looked at me with wide eyes of shock as I held out the tokens. He then gave me an excited smile and nodded his head. He quickly took the tokens. His facial expression was classic and I don't think I will ever forget how excited and happy he looked.

Alex and I went to another Presbyterian church this morning. We parked in front of the church overnight and then one of the regular attenders invited us to attend the Sunday service. It was a very traditional conservative service, except the sermon was preached by a women, but everything else was very structured and conservative. We sang hymnals and the choir was dressed in robes. The majority of the congregation was over the age of 60. They celebrate the Advent season, which I liked because growing up my family always participated in Advent and they still do. After service we chatted with a few people and they were very friendly and welcoming.

We are at a really cool coffee shop right now as a write this blog. It is run by a church called Vintage Faith Church in Santa Cruz. It is really popular with the young folk. If you come to Santa Cruz then check it out!