Exuberating Fantasticisms: Santa Cruz Camping

My awesome friend Danny invited Desirae and I to come along with him and his girlfriend and friends on their camping trip to Santa Cruz. We camped at Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park. It was an incredibly beautiful campground and we had a blast! We set up camp when we first got to the camp site and then headed into town to get some dinner. Who knew that they would have a Chubby's Diner too! I thought my town was the only one! Desirae and I were so excited! Chubby's is my favorite restaurant!

Brad, Ashley and Danny

Lucero, Aaron and Brad

Just doing a little advertising for Get Shifty in the parking lot. Get Shifty is Danny's extreme sports apparel and gear company.

Ashley, Lucero and Desirae around the fire pit at night getting ready to roast marshmallows.

These next 2 pictures are of Danny and Brad lighting the stove. I love the looks on their faces as the stove practically explodes in their faces and then as they try and blow out the flames!

Desirae, Ashley and I were super excited when we found out that all of us LOVED to play card games!! Des had brought some, and Danny played Skip-Bo with us as we drank hot chocolate and apple cider.

Ashley by the blazing fire!

Everyone gathered around the fire trying to stay warm in the cold morning.

For Danny's breakfast he toasted a roast beef sandwich over the fire with a couple of wire hangers we bought and used for marshmallows and Starbursts the night before. We were afraid that it would fall into the fire but it actually worked.

For the day we planned to go to the beach and hang out most of the day and then go to downtown Santa Cruz for dinner. A very unfortunate thing happened to my camera when we were getting out of the truck at the beach. I thought I had the camera strap around my arm but I was mistaken and the camera fell to the concrete lens first. My lens pretty much quit working after that and so there are not many pictures of what we did the rest of the day. But this is Des and I on our way to Manresa Beach. We hung out at the beach for several hours. Des was the really the only one that spent much time in the ocean. It was too cold for any of the rest of us to go any further than our knees. Everyone sunbathed, played catch, went for a walk down the shoreline, etc. I spent the whole time sleeping on a blanket with my sweater still on and a towel over my legs and feet, and a t-shirt over my face so I wouldn't get sunburnt as I tend to do at the beach. I hadn't got much sleep during the night because I was freaking freezing cold. Everyone joked about how I slept the whole time and I joked about how they were all sunburnt.

After the beach we went to downtown Santa Cruz to stroll the streets, do a little shopping and eat at Pizza My Heart. It was a beautiful spring weekend which encouraged everyone to come to downtown Santa Cruz. I love to people watch and this provided the perfect opportunity to do it. We watched the breakdancers, people playing instruments, adorable little puppies, people dressed inappropriately for the weather (either too much clothes or too little). We browsed a ton of incredible little shops until we were exhausted and decided to go back to camp.

This was how the boys liked to start the fire or get it going again:
Pour half a bottle of lighter fluid on the wood, sometimes already burning wood.