santa cruz

[another backposting...]

Begin accustomed to NJ boardwalks, the "boardwalk" at Santa Cruz was a little disappointing. At Santa Cruz, the expected rides and beach were there, but the boardwalk was a totally separate entity. NJ boardwalks, on the other hand, are right next to the beach; take a step off the boardwalk and you're at the beach. There was the usual lot of people playing beach soccer, volleyball, at the arcade, eating fired dough & twinkies, and just lazying about and all.

Santa cruz rides viewed from the boardwalk...


EJ...


Us minus E...


After food and walks along the entertainment and boardwalk, we headed over to the known-by-bumper-sticker Mystery Spot. A 1.25 hour wait before our 45 minute tour...


Half of the tour was inside and out of an intentionally slanted house built on a hill... so that your brain tries to fix your other senses to match your visual perceptions...


Grrr... only towards the last few minutes did I realize I could record it for K to watch [and give me his analytical viewpoints] when we got home (he was missing for the day).

butterflies... frightening... beautiful

This is an ultra delayed (and thus back-posted) post...

There's something about butterflies that I've always found enchanting; so when I heard the SF Conservatory of Flowers was going to have a "butterfly zone" this year, I immediately put it on my list of things to see. It took a while, but I finally managed to drag some peeps out with me ^o^

The SF CoF was still under reconstruction when I first moved out here and did all the touristy things with K, so we missed out on it during the month of weekends in Golden Gate Park. And after that point, we never really went crazy with the touristy things again. I was... excited... to say the least...

The whole experience was "ok". Most of the flower rooms were on the humid side (>_<) and though I liked seeing all the butterflies in the butterfly room, my prior somewhat high expectations killed the experience a bit.

Pictures...
My favorite flowers were the water lilies...


Good to know parts of your heritage... rice...


There were all these plants growing on trees, almost like moss but not quite. J called them parasitic plants...





And the butterflies, of course...




Lessons learned...
...pineapples don't grow on trees
...careful with the youngins in butterfly zones... it's almost impossible to keep them from trying to blow the butterflies, touch them, catch them, etc etc
...take lots & lots & lots of pictures if you want at least one butterfly pic to come out good
...wear brightly colored clothes if you want a butterfly to land on you... my bright orange shirt would have done wonders
...you could just as well cultivate your own butterfly garden

I still think butterflies are really pretty and somewhat enchanting... but after the extended up-close and personal with them, I also find them somewhat frightening now. Afterall, they're just bugs...