Santa Cruz is just down the coast from San Francisco. A beach town with a pier full of shops and eating places.
A lot of nice houses in this town but it was pretty dead on a Tuesday morning
They keep a boat up on the pier for rescue purposes. It would seem that the tides are pretty high.
Nice bicycle rack.
We did manage to happen upon the best breakfast place in at least three states. Beach Street Café, Santa Cruz was its' name and it's right on the street along the beach. They had a collection of jugend magazine covers on the wall that was unbelievable.
We were on our way to the Monterey Bay Aquarium which has the reputation of being first class. As you can see by this map a third of the California coastline is a Marine Sancturary and there are several research institutions along the coast.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium is hard to get at to photograph surrounded as it is by the old Canary Row. So I borrowed a little picture from the broschure.
From the aquarium terrass you can look into the tide pools and watch the sea lions which usually hang around. There are supposed to be pelicans in the area but we missed seeing any.
