We left the highway for a little bit to search out Mission San Miguel in well, er...San Miguel. This poor place is kind of the antithesis of the Carmel Mission.

While Carmel was in gorgeous shape, showing plenty of pride and care, the Mission in San Miguel is a mess. It was extensively damaged in the 2003 earthquake. There seems to be some construction going on and we truly hope they can save it but it is totally falling apart and depressing to look at.

Just down the road a 1/2 mile or less is the Rios Caledonia Adobe.

This was a major stage stop on the mission trail back in the day and we spent awhile poking around the outside.

Damn, we were getting hungry. We never did find that breakfast stop and now it was afternoon. In desperation we turned to Carmen the Garmin and asked for directions to the nearest food (you can do that with GPS units...amazing) and she steered us here...Margie's Diner in King City. Advertising "Real Food" on their sign which makes me laugh because I don't know any other kind. The food was actually quite good and it was here that we discovered the pepper sauce that changed our lives. It was sitting right out there on the table. We tried it, we loved it, we must posses it. It was the Pepper Plant's "Original California Style Hot Pepper Sauce." We asked the waitress if we could buy some and they sold us two bottles. One went to some hot sauce fan friends of ours in Scotland and the other we brought home. It was gone in a week. We located a dealer online and bought an entire case!

We arrived back on the coast in Santa Cruz by early afternoon and checked into a motel within walking distance of the famous Santa Cruz boardwalk.

We lazed around the pool in the sunshine for a bit and then walked on down to the beach for some fun.

My family lived in Santa Cruz waaaay back in the late '50's and I have fond recollections of hanging out on the boardwalk. I felt like a kid again.

And then I was disappointed when the fortune teller wouldn't tell me my fortune. We felt like jerks for getting ripped off by these tacky machines so we decided to get out of there and go scare the bejebers out of ourselves riding the amazing wooden roller coaster at the other end of the pier. The Giant Dipper. Thank god it was closed.

But the 95 year old merry-go-round wasn't! So we rode on that instead, grabbing rings and chucking them at the clown's open mouth. It was huge fun.

Becky however had her heart set on being scared so she talked me into riding the least threatening ride I could find (besides the merry-go-round) - a rocking pirated ship. It turned out to be plenty frightening. Becky screamed. Good.

We were hungry again so we ducked into a likely looking Mediterranean cafe and ate way too much tasty Greek food.

Me with my falafel burger. I managed to gain 5 lbs's on this 6 day trip (burp).

We felt the need to walk after stuffing ourselves so we headed down the beach, watching beach volleyball players and then heading out onto the city pier.

There were surfers...

...and seal lions...

...and lots of kitschy little shops. Some were even named after me.

It was now getting later in the afternoon so we walked back to the motel and called it a day.