Henry Cowell Camping - Day Two

One of the by-products of the Boardwalk was that Ylime "won" a pair of "stylish" sunglasses. The Boy was having issues with his sunglasses so she gave them to him.


These glasses and the knife gave The Boy a definite sinister appearance (at least when you could get him to stop grinning). He looks like someone that would not put up with a British guy whining about not being petty at 4:30 AM. Unfortunatley, he sleeps too soundly to have heard anything. (See the previous post if this makes no sense to you.)


Aynos was extremely keen to eat crepes for breakfast - she had even made the batter the day before. All that was left was for Nod (not Nwad) to do was to cook them. To be fair, he did not have a proper pan or spatula and most of them came out pretty good. It just turned out that the one I took a picture of was having some issues.


While watching the crepe show, I noticed a woman walk by with a yellow cat on a leash. As a complete surprise to me, the cat was EXTREMELY unhappy about the whole leash thing. Sadly, I was not quick enough to get a picture of that, but by wandering around a bit I found her campsite where there were three cats, none of which was on a leash or in kitty handcuffs. I've never seen cats in a campground before - and especially would not have expected it in a state park.

After I finally got over the whole cat thing, I got bored and built this structure out of the firewood.


I've got a great movie of The Boy knocking it down, but it's a bit big to add to the post. But it's great, trust me.

We then headed off to some swimming hole that Nod (not Nwad) read about on the internet. From the parking lot it was a LONG hike downhill to the water. A sign claimed it was only half a mile, but it lied. The only thing I could think of was how hard it was going to be hiking back up the hill once we were done. (The other thought was that it was WAY too cold to be swimming in any case.)


Nod (not Nwad) and most of the others went wading in the creek. Nod bravely caught this crawdad and convinced it to hold still while I took its picture. Aynos wanted to try and make a crepe out of it.

Ylime also found something in the creek, but it turned out to just be a large rock (which she tormented The Boy with, naturally).


It was really a beautiful location and the trail was very cool. But man, it was a LONG way back up that hill.


We then went to dinner at the world famous Santa Cruz Diner. (I made up the "world famous" bit, but it really should be.) I love this place. It has an amazing variety of food choices, low prices, and a fun attitude. (I forgot the camera, but just imagine heaping plates of meatballs, mashed potatoes, jalapeño poppers, salmon, chicken, Vietnamese spring rolls, and lasagna being devoured by hungry campers.)

After dinner, a few of us (well, me and all the women except for Ylime) went for a hike to an overlook just outside the campground. It was fun and the views were great, but this was the nicest view.


(Insert "awwww" sound here.)

And that was about it. Saturday night was a lot less eventful than Friday night. We spent a lot of time playing this game called Apples to Apples which was great fun.

Here is a picture of all of us on the morning we left.


We all had a great time, nobody was seriously injured or arrested, and the weather, while cool, was good enough. This is a great campground (although apparently the showers were less than optimal - but who needs showers when you are camping?) with lots of trails to hike and easy access to Scotts Valley and Santa Cruz.

That's it - move along...