New Year's Day Tradition

Happy day after New Year's Day everyone. This is a non-musical post, but is a photographic journey of what has become a New Year's Day tradition for my wife and I. I'm not quite sure which year it started, but we venture out on NYD and head over to the coast - beginning in Half Moon Bay and making our way down to Santa Cruz. This year we decided to do the same and with the kids in tow we made our way across the Bay and towards the coast. We packed a picnic lunch (which we ended up eating in San Mateo at a park my new Garmin found for us - seriously one of the best Christmas presents I've received ever! It has already come in handy). After eating our lunch and letting the kids play on the swings and slides we got back on the road and headed over the hills to Half Moon Bay. Then down the coast.

We stopped at the Pigeon Point Light Station for some photo ops. I'm a big lighthouse fan...must be the seafaring blood in my veins - descended from Vikings you know. Perched on a cliff on the central California coast, 50 miles south of San Francisco, the 115-foot Pigeon Point Lighthouse, one of the tallest lighthouses in America, has been guiding mariners since 1872. Its five-wick lard oil lamp, and first-order Fresnel lens, comprised of 1,008 prisms, was first lit at sunset, November 15, 1872. The lens stands 16 feet tall, 6 feet in diameter, and weighs 8,000 pounds. It sits in a lantern room that had been constructed at the Lighthouse Service's general depot in New York before being shipped around the Horn. Although the original Fresnel lens is no longer in use, the lighthouse is still an active U.S. Coast Guard aid to navigation using a 24 inch Aero Beacon. To visit the Pigeon Point Light Station or to learn more click here.

We continued to wind our way down the coast to Santa Cruz. The views are breathtaking. The drive relaxing. We ate sourdough bread and Trader Joe's Old Amsterdam Aged Gouda Cheese.

Once we arrived we headed over and parked on the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf (here). It has been a long tradition for my wife's family to go to the Wharf after picking out a Christmas tree in the Santa Cruz mountains for a bowl of clam chowder at the Stagnaro's Bros. (here). Looks like we've added a stop to our New Year's Day trek as everyone enjoyed the clam chowder and the walk along the Wharf.

After our dinner we heard the sea lions barking. We took in a great show as they swam, dove and played in the water below. We caught some great pictures of them as well.

On the way back to the car I snapped some great photographs of the Santa Cruz Lighthouse (also known as the Mark Abbott Memorial Lighthouse) (click here).

We had a great New Year's Day!

Happy New Year to you!

Mark Harvey