Richie & Michele's Road Trip Chronicles: South to Santa Cruz

This is a really cool place.
We instantly fell in love with the variety of people here... hippies, skaters, college geeks, surfers... and the list goes on!

We also discovered something free and fun - The Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk!

(You do have to pay for the rides, though.)

These photos are in honor of my parents. They painstakingly ran a number of booths over the years at the annual Sauce Picante Festival (now obsolete) in order to raise funds for our education at St. Mary's Nativity School.

Ah... the Break-A-Plate booth! These images and the sounds really bring back some fond memories!

Do you dare test The Deep Fried Twinkie?!?!?!

Can you say heart attack?

How about a Hot Dog on a stick?

We had a blast in the classic Photo Booth shoot - making silly faces and having 4 funny photos as a great memory.

We also put in a token to hear Grandma's Fortune for us:

You emerge from your recent fog and get down to business. Life becomes more serious and realistic. If a person takes no thought about what is distant he will find sorrow near at hand.

There is a need for good business judgment now. When things are going well it is all too easy to become over-confident and not give proper attention to one's duties. If this tendency is recognized early it may be corrected and no harm will be done. You will also find time after business is settled for friend and or lovers. It is easy to see, hard to foresee.

Doesn't look like we'll be winning the lottery anytime soon... our winning numbers were cut off while tearing the ticket form the fortune dispenser. Darn!

We watched students from The Paul Green School of Rock, San Francisco play at a Spring Break special on the boardwalk. Their mission statement: "Saving Rock & Roll One Kid At A Time"

The students were brilliant - playing classics from The Beatles and Heart, to Journey and The Eagles. The youngest was a shy 10-year old girl who blossomed while banging the drums, and the oldest was a 17-year old guy magically strumming the guitar and charming the audience with his voice.

We walked the wharf and watched the sunset.

Okay, these are really embarrassing, but too funny not to share.
We were having dinner at the end of the wharf and spontaneously started snapping pictures of each other.

The results below...