Santa Cruz: No Rest for the Cool Crowd

Santa Cruz, California, March 2008

Returning again to Santa Cruz for a week of work, I realize how much work it is to stick there. It may be the coolest town on the planet, but being part of it is not as easy as it looks.

Now, I am no tourist here. Santa Cruz is a skein of memories for me: I lived there 20 years, got a grad degree at Slug U., had my children, bought and sold houses, raised a family and a business. My name is on the wall list of notable beer-drinkers in a downtown tavern, I got the secret local knowledge you can only acquire over years, and I paid for it with my youth. I know where to park downtown for free without getting a ticket, I know the best topless beaches versus the best surfing beaches on the North Coast, what combination of tide, wind  and swell creates perfect left barrels at Davenport Landing, how to get from downtown Santa Cruz to Capitola when the freeway is clogged (almost always now), and where to get great carnitas burritos in any neighborhood (OK, that one is easy in California).

But now I have jumped ship, moved my family back to the Old Country, the full four seasons and white winters of the Hudson Valley. We keep our footprint in Santa Cruz, though, with a condo for summer living, and with my monthly returns to work at groundwater consulting. Now I see more clearly how not mellow it is: everyone is stuck on the freeway, talking to their partner about childcare, trying to make the frickin' mortgage payment and still get in a little longboard session (or Ultimate team practice, or climbing gym, Wilder State Park mountain bike outing or running in Pogonip with doggie friends, or whatever).   

In Santa Cruz, the pulse never stops. There is always new surfers in your lineup, new restaurants to try, another batch of good-looking young people and sketchy panhandlers on Pacific Garden, no parking to be found in Capitola since 1979, fog in the morning, and blue skies after lunch, pretty girls on cruiser bikes, pretty Moms in mini-vans, too many cars on the freeway, hummingbirds in the garden, good music coming to town and Realtors setting up and taking down Open House signs. There is no rest for the cool.