santa cruz - the weekend away

Got out of town this past weekend with Jeremy. First stop, was actually in town - gotcha! Actually, I just wanna give Brenda's a bonjour for some delicious (rich) french soul food to kick start the day...

those are chocolate filled beignets in front of us!

Then, for real, we got outta town and headed to Swank Family Farms - home of the CORN MAZE! As well as...the goat walk ooooo, and the pedal karts! yay, pedal yourself around and pay for it! weeee! (sarcasm here)
The excitement for the labyrinth & corn maze is killing me no really, get me in there!
All the magnificent corn!

The labyrinth had some strange '8' chamber configuration that had plaques set up which Jeremy and I determined was some strange way to get you to join the new church of unity. Either way, at stage 8, there were sunflowers and bumblebees!
So we jumped around.
Me all awkward-like

and Jeremy all kung-fu-ish

So, the labyrinth of the circle of life or whatever they were preaching was completely different then the maze! Can you believe it?!!?! We could hardly stand it, and became so enthralled with all the stalks of corn, we called some friends to come and hang out!
Genevieve and Saffron!
We got sick of all their making out, so we moved on to other ventures awaiting us in the corn maze. Like husk-hair!

and husk-stache!

Then I had to pee really bad, so we left the maze,bought pumpkins then headed out to the Mystery Spot
For those of you who aren't privy to knowledge of the mystery spot, since I wasn't until my coworkers told me about it, the lowdown is that it is "a gravitational anomaly located in the redwood forests just outside of Santa Cruz, California. It is a circular area of effect around 150 feet or 46 meters in diameter." Basically you go here and experience this 17 degree lean while in the house itself, which resides in the center of the circular area.

We really did feel heavy and lightheaded while we were there, which is a common occurrence they warn you about. You can't make this stuff up.

Here's me trying to demonstrate the rolling 'up' of my lip balm. I think it would have been easier with a ball, but you can still see it appear to roll up the plank, especially towards the end.

Afterwards, we headed into Santa Cruz & ate at a wonderful Indonesian restaurant called Batik Cafe. Had some amazing chai called Bandrek that the owner makes fresh daily. I would give up coffee if I could drink that every day. So amazing, and caffeine free! Then to finish off a wonderful day, we hunkered down at The Red Room, drank $6.25 manhattans on the rocks, and chatted with the bartenders who were awesome.

Sunday morning we enjoyed a massage/jacuzzi at the Well Within Spa, stopped in to buy records at Metamusic before eating at the Walnut Ave Cafe and checked out the Antique St. Fair - where Jeremy found even more records and some cloth napkins. Then we hit up the boardwalk, and somehow I managed to not take any photos (???!!!) but it was fun, believe me. Before heading out, we went down to Natural Bridges State Beach. Santa Cruz has a really nice coast line, and it was a beautiful walk to the beach and tide pools.

The rocks looked like pieces of wood

I poked a starfish

We even got to catch some of the sunset

The cool birds cliff club in full force Ok, I made that up, but it was fun to see them all perched on the cliff like that.
Then, due to the fact that Jeremy harbors the same need as I do to fit as much in as possible, we ran over to the Long Marine Lab. Here they have whale bones! Check it out, they were pretty cool.

This one is more well known, as Ms. Blue. Discovered in 1979, which is the largest blue whale skeleton on display in the world!

Weekend aways are fun, but alas, they never quite turn into the week, month, year you always want them to!