California Dreamin

As you saw from our previous post I left my two beautiful girls at home for a few days. The reason for my leaving was to attend the wedding of a college friend named Pat. Pat hails from the lovely area around Santa Cruz California. He married a girl that he knew in high school and they met again later in college. Two weeks before the big event we got a message from Pat that he was betrothed and ready to wed soon. My brother Andrew and I made the last minute plans

and both flew out for a five day West coast adventure. I had the privilege of seeing my precious little niece Addison for a few minutes at the Denver airport along with my sister in law Michelle. It was good to see them. Once in California Pat took us to his house among the giant redwoods and we sat late into the night around a roaring fire, under the bright stars, and along a musical river. It's quite a piece of paradise where Pat lives and sitting around the fire was better that anything you will ever see on television. For the next couple of days Andrew and I did whatever we were told to do to help with the wedding. Pats church hosted the event and everyone pitched in to make it truly epic, in the locals words. The people we met were very nice and made it a great time. On Sunday, the day after the wedding, Andrew and I had the perfect day. We started with a breakfast from Spankey's cafe and then went for a hike through the dense redwood forest. I tryed to capture the redwoods with my camera but there is really no way to do it. The only way to see them is in person. Next we stopped off at the neighborhood bigfoot museum. Anyone who knows me well knows that bigfoot is one of my greatest fascinations as well as one of my biggest fears. The museum was very cool, but the best part of it was the legend of a man who ran the museum. He is a seasoned bigfoot expert and talking with him was a trip high light. From there we headed ten minutes down highway 9 to Santa Cruz. It is amazing to be in the middle of an ancient forest an then ten minutes down the the road to be along some of the best coastine you will ever see. It isn't hard to see why so many people want to live here. We parked near the boardwalk and walked down the wharf where watched the seals and had lunch. Then we walked the beach and the boardwalk. From there we headed down the coast and watched the surfers and enjoyed the beauty of the ocean. If you watched closely you might of caught a glimpse of a sea otter. We ended our scenic drive at natural bridges state park and enjoyed the view. The best part of this was that Pat's bride Brook had lent us her car for the day and the night before it had been decorated as the just married car. Andrew and I thought that it wouldn't be out of the ordinary for us to be cruising the California coast in the just married car. As we sat and enjoyed the view at natural bridges a couple pulled up next to us and asked which one of us was the bride. What a fun trip!