half moons and yummy pizza

Friday, Sept 13 – Out of Carmel early, heading up the 1 for a rendevous at a Half Moon Bay seaside room. But first, some time in Santa Cruz.

Ann parked near the Boardwalk (see her there) and we made our way over to the Santa Cruz wharf/pier, a sign announcing it as, “The longest wooden wharf on the coast of the United States.” The morning fog and marine layer was lifting as we made our way out to the pier’s end (the very end fenced off do to storm damage). As has become something of a norm, the sound of seals, out here sunning on boat ramps and sea-level wooden structures, as background music. The view from far out on the water, back toward the morning glow of Santa Cruz, truly lovely.

Following a Starbucks stop, we continued our journey north on the 1 to Half Moon Bay, a town with a small business center Ann had visited with her sister Patty years before, and wanted to visit again. The drive up incredible – browning-grass hills rolling directly down to the ocean, here-and-there clumps of dark-green forest, mountains just off to the east. Cows. The small center of Half Moon Bay is charming, a friendly feel, a sense of soul and hip as well. Generally a pretty far out place, one I had never experienced. And with one welcoming bench after another.

We came upon a bookstore not on the original list, and which would be the last for we voracious readers and explorers on this eight-day adventure – ‘Ink Spell Books.’ The owner was great, toured us around the different rooms. I scored a Ruth Rendell mystery for $3.50, and added a very strange Kenneth Patchen book – “AFLAME AND AFUN OF WALKING FACES.” That cost $8.50. Hopefully I’ll share a dreamy book report down the road. (Typing this today, I have just finished the Rendell book, and added it to a little library around the corner.)

My Keto diet has struggled to tag along on this journey, and in a bakery I follow Ann’s lead and buy a blueberry, apple, coconut, and walnut muffin, which I eat at 4 the next morning, just after meditation, and with coffee. And at a deli we split a pizza – vegetable for the lovely tour director, pepperoni for the kid. It was, I believe, the best three pieces of pizza I have ever eaten. Half Moon Bay.

We check into our room, three miles up the road and just 28 miles south of San Francisco, and again take advantage of the coastline opportunity with a stroll on the beach. Accompanied by sandpipers, surfers, kids in wetsuits with their surfer dads, a zillion pelicans, and the summer-sized waves of Mavericks, somewhere out there off in the fog.