I woke up at what would be about normal for San Francisco time. I seem to adjust to the time difference pretty quickly when I go to the West Coast. It's coming back home that's the problem.

I took a shower and waited for Kenny and Richard to call. When they did call they said they were on their way. After a few minutes I went down to the street and waited for them to pick me up.

They came by and I sacked out in the back seat as we headed out of town. Once out of the city they put on a CD. It was Boy George's latest solo effort. They were all excited about it, but I was like, "Oh please..." The first track was "G.I. Josephine." It turned out to be a really good song. I mean, I really liked it. It had a good beat, but a standard 4:4 rock & roll beat rather than one of those 200 beats-per-minute dance songs that make me want to jump out of a moving car. Beyond that the lyrics were topical and witty. I figured that maybe I'd misjudged this fem queer.

Unfortunately the rest of the disk didn't entirely measure up to this first song. It was a long drive down to Santa Cruz. Despite having an entire day to recover, I was still feeling very sketchy from my first drunken binge in town. I lay back and closed my eyes as we racked up the miles.

Finally we pulled into town. Listening to them discuss where to go I got the impression that they'd never been there before. I had assumed that this was someplace they went from time to time, but it seemed that this was a first for them too. We found our way down to the strip along the shore and parked in a nearby lot. It was a bright sunny day, but I decided to bring my leather jacket along with me.

I had no idea what to expect and didn't know what kind of a town Santa Cruz was. All these Northern California towns sound the same to me. I figured it was some Silicon Valley burb like Pleasanton or something. It turned out to be more like a West Coast version of Atlantic City meets Woodstock. There was an amusement park and boardwalk along the shore. My Citroën ID19 had a number of Santa Cruz parking permit stickers in the back window. I didn't think much of that beyond the fact that it validated that it was truly a California car, but it all made a lot more sense now. This was a community of off-beat artist types.

As we walked around Kenny confirmed my suspicion that they had never been there before. It made me feel good to know that my presense had inspired them to do something totally new. We strolled up the strip and wound up walking out the wharf that extended into the sea. We stopped here and there to read the didactic placards that told of the history of the town and the wharf. Once out on the end of the pier we looked down to see the sea lions that were lying lazily on the beams below. I was glad that I had my jacket with me, as there was a constant cool breeze.

After a while we walked back to the mainland. We had a great view of the amusement park that ran along the shore. Once back on land we headed in that direction. We somehow managed to be there on the very day when some cheerleading competition was going on. There were High School girls all over the place in their ridiculous skirts and sweaters, bearing the letters and logos of their respective schools.

As we got deeper into the amusement park Richard suggested that we go on the roller coaster that was there. It was an old-fasioned wooden rig. I said I was game. Kenny was resistent to the idea. Richard tried to convince him, but Kenny just wan't into it. Richard asked me if I was interested. I said I was going to go on it if I went alone. I hadn't been on a roller coater in a long time, and I really love them. Richard and I decided that we'd go together, and Kenny would hold mt coat.

We got our tickets and waited in line. Fortunately it was a short wait. We climbed aboard and away we went. It wound up being a pretty good ride. It was an "out and back" style coaster, with an odd spiral descent back towards the starting point. I was very pleased. It, like every coaster I've ever been on, was a bit short, but that's the way these things go.

We met back up with Kenny. He was watching the cheer leader competition, and seemed entirely content to have waited for us on the ground. Richard and I both raved about the ride. We walked around a bit more. I got myself a corn dog. That appears to be my "Welcome to California" thing. On both this trip and my first I've gotten a corn dog at some point during our Sunday outting, and I've never had a corn dog elsewhere. It was good, but lay heavy in my still hungover belly.

We found ourselves in the vicinity of the more modern, metal roller coaster that was also in the park. Richard asked me if I'd like to go on that one too. I said, "Lead the way." We got more tickets, and got in line. Again it was a short wait. We got on board and secured ourselves in. Some fat old guy with a petit young Asian woman were in the car behind us. From the first jolt when the train left the loading dock, the Asian girl let out a scream. This didn't bode well for me and my enjoyment of the ride. Feminine frailty is a fact of life I've come to accept, but I'll never understand why they can't keep their mouths shut. The coaster made its slow ascent to the top of the first drop, and from the moment we began our initial plummet all the way to the end of the ride this young woman was screaming non-stop.

The ride came to an end and we go off. We met up with Kenny right away, and I quickly complained about the Asian girl behind us. I looked back over my shoulder, and saw the old guy holding her around her shoulders. She actually looked quite distressed. Roller coaters aren't for everyone, and she appeared to be one who should stay off them. As we walked on Richard and I both agreed that the older wooden clickety-clack coasters make for a better overall experience than the smoother modern ones, irrespective of the drops and/or g-forces. They just have an aura of greater danger.

We went inside the gaming arcade for a while. Kenny and Richard did this one thing that looked pretty cool but cost five bucks. They were secured into a small, two-seated chamber with a view screen. That little chamber was then spun around in 365 degrees while images of a roller coaster were played to them on the screen inside the chamber. It looked like a lot of fun, but it was expensive and I was still mildly on the hungover side.

I went walking around looking for some of my favorite childhood video games. They has some of the classics, but nothing I was particularly interested in. The only game I've ever been able to consistently trash the high score was an early 80's game called "Star Castles" that never became particularly popular. If it was in this arcade I missed it.

It didn't take long before we decided to go do something else. Kenny really wanted to smoke some weed, but there was none around. A couple cops walked by. Kenny joked that he was going to go up and ask them where the drug dealers usually hang out. Richard and I laughed, but then Kenny went up to the cops! Richard and I distanced ourselves a little bit, not entirely putting *anything* past Kenny. He came back over in a few minutes. It turned out that he was asking the cops how to get to the downtown area. The cops had given him directions and we set out walking.

We walked past a number of big old resort-type houses, and eventually came upon the downtown strip. We decided to pop into a bar for a quick beer. The Buffalo Bills were on TV. I'm not much of a football fan, but I always like to watch the Bills and was bummed that I'd miss the game. I quick look revealed that the game was almost over anyway, and the Bills were getting their asses kicked. So much for that.

We got a couple of pints and went out back to the patio area. We sat down in a booth and started sipping our pints. I had my back to the building, and Kenny & Richard were facing me. There were some colorful local characters there. They all struck me as the barfly type. I wasn't sure exactly what type of place this was, but one of the female barflies said something to someone else about, "You missed a good fight our here last night." Most of the male patrons had excessively long facial hair, very dirty clothes, and large leather wallets with chains strung to their belts. By this time I had grown to be fairly comfortable in pretty much any part of San Francisco, but this was Santa Cruz. We were in a local bar, away from the tourist sector, surrounded by locals, and I suddenly felt a million miles from home and very uncomfortable. I'm not sure why because the atmosphere wasn't the least bit threatening. I just suddenly felt like a fish out of water, and I was starting to gasp for air.

I was beginning to consider going back inside to watch the Bills game. Just as I was about to make a move, some local barfly guy came up to us and started talking. He noticed Kenny & Richard's military-style hair cuts and asked if we were veterans. The guy didn't seem dangerous or anything, but he talked either like he was drunk or had the early signs of Parkinson's disease. I figured the odds were it was the former. He was totally bugging me out, but Kenny seemed almost enthusiastic about talking to him. Richard looked a little weirded out by the situation, but was joining in the conversation nonetheless. I was feeling uncomfortable to begin with, but this was sending me over the edge. The problem was that the guy was standing in such a way as to block me in. I would have had to squeeze past him, and it would probably have looked like I was trying to get away from him (which wasn't far from the truth). I decided the better thing to do was just sit there and gulp my pint as I waited for him to go away.

Finally the guy did move along. Kenny said to Richard and me, "It was all good." Kenny thought that the guy was as weird as Richard and I did, but he wasn't put off by that kind of thing. He knew the guy was harmless, and he figured it was better for everyone all around to have a little social interraction. I admired Kenny for that kind of open attitude, but at the time I could have done without it all. Before long we'd drank down our beers and were back on our way.

The first thing we encountered was a group of black youths who hit us up for a handout. It appeared that Santa Cruz wasn't all that different from San Francisco in that respect. Kenny walked over to the ring leader and asked if there was any place on the strip where we could score some weed. The guy, probably not expecting that kind of response, was actually very contientous and tried to be as helpful as he would be. He told us to look for some skinny white boy with his pregnant girlfriend with him, and gave us a couple of spots he was most likely to be. Kenny thanked him and we continued walking along.

Looking at Kenny's haircut (left) you can see why the scuzzy guy thought he was military

As we progressed down the strip it transformed more from a dirty, run-down area to a more trendy, college-town type of environment. I relaxed a little bit and enjoyed the street performers and colorful people. Once we got down to a certain point we crossed the street and started back again. If I was a little less tired I would have suggested that we stop again for another drink. But as it was we just kept walking. As we got to the part where the area was transforming back into dirty and run-down, we found the place where the black panhandler told us to look for the drug dealer. Kenny went in by himself. Just a minute or so later he came back out saying that no one meeting the description was there. He noted now that he saw some kids back in the trendy section that were probably them. We all decided that it wasn't worth going back for. We continued on our way back to the car.

As we pulled out of town we decided to go the whole way back on Route 1 along the shore. It was indeed a scenic drive, but I spent a lot of the time sitting back with my eyes closed.