food aromas helped to neutralize the other odours..... Or we got used to it -
slightly worryingly. The food itself was nice and the only thing that spoilt our
enjoyment of breakfast was the noise from the next table, where two girls
were attempting to shock the whole restaurant by discussing sleeping with
each other the night before.
The volume of their conversation, not the content (which was actually
quite funny), was what bothered us. The problem, common in American
restaurants, was that the tables were too close to each other – a problem
compounded by another fact, Americans are generally very loud. After we
finished eating we felt ready to give Santa Cruz a second try.
After another unscheduled tour of the town's back streets, we found
The Boardwalk - supposed to be one of the 'places to go'. It turned out to be a
bit like Blackpool, but in the low season and less classy. I'm sure that the
weather and time of year go a long way to explaining our reaction to Santa
Cruz, but even on a sunny day the place would still have been hard to
navigate and a bit too tacky for us. And as we left town the sun came out...an
omen perhaps?
From Santa Cruz we drove on to Monterey and a very small RV park about 15
minutes drive from the town centre. RV Park is actually a very grand and very
misleading name for what was in fact three van size parking spaces behind
the Cyprus Tree Inn. However, at least we had hookups and the washrooms
were not communal but individual little bathrooms.
We were now at the end of our third week in the US and it was early