Santa Cruz and Monterey

We arrived on Friday (July 4), and it was a pretty good day of travel until we hit Minneapolis Airport. In Minneapolis, we boarded the plane and everything seemed fine, and then there was some sort of problem with a computer on the plane, and that turned into a 2.5 hour delay. We finally arrived in Sacramento a few hours late, and then went to Brad's house for a BBQ with the family. It was soooo great to see everyone, and spend some time relaxing and enjoy being with my family. After it got dark, we watched some fireworks, but then me and McGee were getting quite tired (we'd been awake over 21 hours by that point... ), so we drove back to my parents' house and passed out.

The next day we drove to Santa Cruz!! It was really beautiful and awesome there, but MY GOODNESS it was crowded!! I guess the Saturday of the 4th of July weekend is a popular time to go to Santa Cruz... whoops! It was such a relief when we were finally parked and could walk around a bit. We walked over to the pier/wharf and had lunch, and then we went to the beach and got our feet wet in the ocean. After our feet were nice and cooled-off, we walked over to the Boardwalk and Brad, Amanda, Cassidy, and Addison went on the carousel. We were pretty tired by that point, so we returned to the car and my parents, McGee and I headed down to Monterey (Brad, Amanda, and the girls drove home).

In Monterey, we parked near Cannery Row and then walked around quite a bit. We saw a ton of harbor seals lounging on the beach, and we stood and watched them for a little while.  Then we continued to walk around the Cannery Row area, and we ate dinner at the Cannery Row Brewing Company (which does not brew any beer...), and then drove home!!

You can kinda see all the seals on the beach in both pictures! 

We're leaving for Yosemite tomorrow - I'll make sure to take LOTS of pictures!!