Santa Cruz Ranch & RV Resort, 4/9-4/13/18

The less said about this place the better.

I posted a review on rvparkreviews.com. They ask you to post the price you paid before you make your comments and since they won’t allow a zero entry, I put in $1. This is my post :

“Actually free, part of Thousand Trails, but still NOT worth the price. You got slides? Good luck. This park was built before slides and now they have marked out narrow sites with white lines that you are expected to stay between. The fire department requires some magic distance away from the 30 amp electric socket. After getting read the riot act, very nicely, I might add, when checking in, we still ended up in a fierce argument with her when she found we were too much over the line. After I threatened to check every RV in the park to make sure they were in the lines, she gave us a few inches of leeway. She has a truly lousy job. Thousand Trails should be ashamed of themselves. RV’s with slides should not be allowed and at 42′, our MH leaves our Jeep out in the road, but somehow that’s ok. You also park opposite your neighbor. Horrible setup. We test the water. Decent tap water (210ppm) and fairly soft. Thousand Trails is two for two with us so far – two losers. Don’t come here. Santa Cruz is nothing anyway. The boardwalk is seedy.”

The boardwalk area – think Coney Island you east-coasters – was so creepy we didn’t even park. Walgreen’s was our major attraction – lots of prescription refills. As usual, the pharmacist was unsure whether she could fill the Tramadol and I had to wait another day. By now, I know California law regarding prescription controlled substances better than most pharmacists – yes, you can transfer the scrip within the state an unlimited number of times. It can only be transferred from out of the state once. Original paper prescriptions for controlled substances must be written on a special California form. So, I get my original in Colorado, have it filled there at a Walgreen’s, then can refill it multiple times in CA. Now you know the law in CA.

Originally, we thought that we’d use Santa Cruz as the home base for exploring Monterey-Carmel-Big Sur, but, with that horrendous traffic experience still fresh in our minds, we opted instead to go to a state beach and nature preserve just north of Monterey.

We think this was a Northern Harrier.

And the centered dude, an Egret, was photo-bombed by the Great Blue Heron on the right.

Also on our radar for the area was Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park. Our neighbors, Wendy and Kent, at the god-forsaken RV park, highly recommended it.

This oddly shaped root system of a toppled giant made me think of clouds and how you can see faces and animals if you look long enough:

At first I came up with The Thinker, Fox Version. Then perhaps, a wolf chewing on the leg of a Scottish Terrier?

Good riddance to Santa Cruz. Inland, for a 10 day rest from touristing.