Howdy,
Series note: the days have kind of come and passed—so quickly—but I’ve mentioned briefly in multiple posts about our six days in Santa Cruz and having active snippets to share, so I’m going to follow through on this—even if it’s become so long now that I’m not sure that I’m even that interested in it. (Not the way to intro your piece, for the writing students out there.) It’s been busy, and some minor illness in the family kind of throws things out of whack; we’re blessed it’s a summer schedule right now and we can kind of roll with the inefficient fog as the days rise and recede …
So I’ve lined it out, from what I’ve started (Thursday): Friday; Saturday; Sunday; Monday; Tuesday. Now I’ve just got to write them all.
Sunday: Sunday, was an easy-going, stay-on-campus day (at Mission Springs Conference Center)—use the wonderful space around the beautiful cabin. Keep the going for another day. Well, we sort of pulled that off, also doing a lot that day, in its own way. Also known as, not that easy going.
Let’s see, we …
… Got to the playground for the kids in the afternoon.
… Had a late lunch and then made to the pool for the boys (me included!) jumping off the high dive (well, high dive for them: really its more of just a real diving board—rare these days—a number of paces and flexible for a good launch into a true deep end.
… Left the pool and kicked it into get to get to Santa Cruz and Woodstock Pizza again for another Golden State Warriors versus Cleveland Cavaliers Finals game, Game 2. (Told you this is quickly becoming a while back—but we like the way the championship series ended, don’t we? They do in Santa Cruz, and it was fun to watch the games in that atmosphere: a public place so near the home of the Warriors.) And the Warriors did play great again, like when I watched Game 1 with my brothers, sitting at almost the exact same table. Packed house.
… After the game, I took Sarah to David’s hot-spot recommendation, Verve Coffee Roasters (which I’ve already mentioned so much in this little series on Santa Cruz), and we got a cold nitro brew (also David’s thing, and I figured Sarah would like the little bit of fizz). Sunset scheduled for any minute and creeping through, we got the coffee to go.
… We took the nitro brew and drove toward the ocean. Simply seeking a quick view of the Pacific Ocean (my family’s first chance on that trip) at sunset. It was nice; we made use of West Cliff Drive, and made our way to another favorite, Natural Bridges.
… We parked for just a minute in the overlook parking at Natural Bridges—the beach my brothers and I enjoyed early and that I’d hit the next day with my family, as we’ve tended to do in the past. As a special thing for Riah Surf who’d be turning one the next day, we kept the older two boys belted in their carseats for the quick stop, and I turn Riah in his carseat and propped him outside in front of the vehicle where he could see the surf and the sand and the sunset, and Sarah and I told him we’d bring him back the next day, for his first birthday.
—Billy
Reading. Writing. Living.
Word Count: 130,509 / On Pace: 138,600 / Year’s Goal: 200,000
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