It's odd, because I was excited to get here. On the map, it looked lovely, and all the brochours touted it as a premier surf spot and scenic destination. In reality, it's somewhat sketchy, dirty, and unwelcoming. I have never seen so many "Do not" and "No" signs in my entire life. This was at the entrance to the beach:
( Subliminal Message: F off and go away. )
And this was just one of many! We were asked to leave the boardwalk (which was completely closed down in the daytime) by a security officer, because there were no dogs allowed. The same signs were posted all over, in various forms.
We stopped at the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History on the way back to the hotel. Outside is a giant steel cast of a beached gray whale. It was a small museum, but well presented and interesting! They had some beautifully taxidermied examples of the local wildlife, including some coyotes, various hawks, and a truly intimidating Golden Eagle with a 7 foot wingspan. There was a father and his young daughter there. She was maybe about 6 years old, and full of questions that he patiently answered one after another. It really brought me a glimmer of hope for the future to see that curious minds are still being brought into the world, and that some parents still put in the time to teach our next generation about our precious and rapidly disappearing natural world.
We walked back to the hotel and decided to grab a couple things out of the van. This is where things went south.
On the back of the van, where our two bikes had been, was an empty rack and two slashed cables. We had the bikes mounted on a Yakima swing away bike rack, with the stock locking cable and a secondary locking steel cable as well. The thieves cut right through both of them in broad daylight, and made off with our bikes.
I was pretty devastated. I bought my bike for $150, and put another $200 into fixing it right before leaving. When you're living on a beans-and-rice budget, this is the kind of money that really hits hard. I'd really been looking forward to exploring little towns on the bike and getting some exercise. I suppose it was foolish to think that we could have something nice out in the open, even if it was locked up.
We filed a police report and went through the motions, but if you've ever had a bike stolen you know it's gone forever. Dave looked up the crime rate on the internet, and apparently Santa Cruz has the highest property crime rate amongst all California cities. What a place to be stuck.
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