{"id":4118,"date":"2019-05-27T06:17:38","date_gmt":"2019-05-27T06:17:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/updates.xephalon.net\/?p=4118"},"modified":"2019-08-03T21:39:02","modified_gmt":"2019-08-03T21:39:02","slug":"santa-cruz-choo-choo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/2019\/05\/27\/santa-cruz-choo-choo\/","title":{"rendered":"Santa Cruz Choo Choo"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>With growing feelings of burnout at work, we made a last-minute decision to take a family trip to Santa Cruz for Memorial Day weekend. I pulled a late night on Thursday to work on a paper, and felt more caught up by Friday as we packed for our mini-getaway. Due to a dearth of\u00a0AirBnb<\/a> options, we spent our Chase points for a family-friendly\u00a0hotel<\/a>\u00a0that included free breakfast. We set out after Westley’s Saturday dance class, fueled on black garlic ramen<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0XLB from San Jose’s\u00a0DTF<\/a>, and arrived at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk<\/a>\u00a0by late afternoon to soak up the carnival atmosphere before taking a turn on the carousel. The 1911 Looff Carousel<\/a> is a national historic landmark, featuring hand-carved wooden horses, a ring-dispenser, and an original Ruth & Sohn organ that was a step above the pedal-powered merry-go-round at the Davis Farmer’s Market. Westley still fits in a Pack-n-Play, so we were able to indulge in season 1 of the\u00a0Umbrella Academy<\/a>\u00a0in bed next to him with the lights out. On Sunday, we wandered among greenhouse seedlings at UC Santa Cruz’s\u00a0Life Lab<\/a>, piloted a submarine at the Monterey Bay Marine Exploration Center<\/a>, barked at sea lions over\u00a0chowder<\/a> at the Santa Cruz Wharf<\/a>, then enjoyed chicken salad and roasted beet sandwiches at the Picnic Basket<\/a>. After nap time, we visited the touch pond at the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History<\/a>\u00a0and strolled along Seabright Beach<\/a>\u00a0on the way to a mediocre\u00a0dinner<\/a> and fantastic ice cream<\/a>. We awoke early on Monday for another go on the carousel before grabbing\u00a0sandwiches<\/a>\u00a0to take on the Dixiana\u00a0Redwood Forest Steam Train<\/a>\u00a0at Roaring Camp.<\/a>\u00a0The Memorial Day train also featured a Civil War skirmish reenactment, complete with dramatic deaths and musket salutes. Westley napped until our afternoon stop at Pacific East Mall<\/a>, where we stocked up at 99 Ranch Market<\/a> and stuffed ourselves with pancake balls and Sichuan cuisine<\/a> before driving home. Our spontaneous family trip at least cleared away our mental doldrums – hopefully the effects will last until our trip to Croatia next month.<\/p>\n\n\n

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With growing feelings of burnout at work, we made a last-minute decision to take a family trip to Santa Cruz for Memorial Day weekend. I pulled a late night on Thursday to work on a paper, and felt more caught … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4118"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4200,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4118\/revisions\/4200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}