This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 18th, 2007 at 12:23 am and is filed under Bay Area Backroads, Pictures. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Whew! What a weekend. The girls went all out this weekend and, I believe, had a wonderful time. We spent most of the day Saturday in the beach communities of Watsonville and Santa Cruz. We started at Gayle’s Bakery (for a Santa cookie) and then inched our way to Babi’s house before starting out tripto Natural Bridges State Park in Santa Cruz and Wilder Ranch just North of there in Sea Bright. Both of which I highly recommend.
If you’ve never been to Natural Bridges, you’re missing one of nature’s true wonders. This is where the Monarch butterflies return every year to spend the winter. They can’t freeze and apparently this is the place they feel safest and so thousands upon thousands of butterflies come here to mate and spend the cold season. The pictures don’t do justice to it, but you can stare into the sky and see thousands of them clinging together in little pods and bunches. Truly a sight to see.
To get there you basically drive onto the beach and then head inland about 1/8 mile where you can walk down to a platform that has been created (and is managed by the State) for people to admire the butterflies. You’re not supposed to leave the platform. Of course, as you can see, our little one managed to drop her shoe over the side (under the railing) and mama had to go and get it. Natalie was a trooper, but everyone got a chuckle all the same.
After seeing the butterflies - some up close where we said “Hello” - we took a short walk toward the beach. It was through the “forest” and the girls did very well. In the lower section, which is probably part swamp in the wetter months, Sofi and Natalie saw their first cat-tail. We looked - and touched a little - but left everything as we found it. Great little hike and perfect for exploring minds. They now, also know what Eucalyptus smells like.
As most of us can remember, the beach is always loads of fun, and even though we said they couldn’t get wet, they enjoyed playing in the sand. We found a couple of holes that had been started before we arrived and the girls continued to excavate them in their own little world.
After the beach the girls spent a little time getting cleaned up and then some time up on the tree branch. We’re always calling them little monkeys, but neither seemed really crazy after finding that they were five feet off the ground. Imagine, though, we’re only around 2:00 here. More to follow in the next post…
Papa
