Further South

I finally made a decision to leave San Francisco and venture further into the surrounding areas, in other words, the unknown.  Remarkably, this morning I found myself resistant to leaving San Francisco.  Certainly despite my own efforts I had become comfortable in the city.  It's actually not that surprising, especially because I had made a few personal connections and had found some awesome places to eat.  Either way, I knew that today I would travel outside of the Bay Area, and so I did.  I haven't travelled that far, definitely not as far as I had thought I might even a few days ago.  My original plan was to travel north up along the coast into Oregon, possibly as far as Eugene, which is eight hours drive from San Francisco.  No thanks!  Instead I ventured south to Santa Cruz, which is where I am now.  I believe I shall go even further south tomorrow, incrementally working along the coast.  

The drive down was beautiful.  I saw several hawks along the way, one was definitely a Turkey Vulture, which are easy to identify because of their prevalence in Westchester.  The others I was unfamiliar with, but I bought a field guide for California so perhaps I will be able to identify them later on.  The first one I saw was flying over the freeway with kill in its mouth, that was really cool, and the other one that I got a really good look at was hanging out on a power-line.  It had speckled wings and a red breast, maybe a juvenile?  Either way, to me they were signs that I was headed in the right direction.

I stopped a few times along the highway and took pictures of the coast, and eventually broke free of the cursed cloud cover that blankets San Francisco.  Here it is warm and sunny and the sky is blue!  Sweeeet.  So now it is time to find lodging for the night, and find a meal, and then look for a dive shop.  It has long been a dream of mine to dive in the giant kelp forests that litter the coast of Santa Cruz.  They are unique marine habitats that are home to sea otters, sharks and lots of tiny fishs.  Now to explore.

- paul