Ripping and Zipping in the Redwoods

Today's Turkey Attack

Attacking the Bus

The California adventure continued today.  A full morning spent inspecting buses and surviving yet another turkey attack.  He is relentless.  We finished up and headed back to the Santa Cruz Mountains for a date with the zip lines.  While driving down there we stopped for lunch at the only appropriate place for this burger centric trip.  Those of you who love hamburgers know that I am talking about - the sun center of burgerdom – Fudruckers!!!!!!  Needless to say this was a truly spectacular lunch and we were exposed to some new beverage technology.  This is appropriate since we were in Silicon Valley.  We were given glasses for the ordered soft drinks and were looking around for the dispenser.  Finally I noticed what looked like an ice machine with all the soda trademarks on the sign.  Feeling adventurous I touched the sign for diet coke and the entire sign changed over to that.  I pushed an unlabeled button below and was rewarded with the desired beverage.  I was so proud of myself for figuring this out without instructions – life is made up of small victories and this was one of them.  We were a little early arriving so we kind of wandered through some of the small towns in the mountains.  I was struck by how beautiful the forest was and how the houses seemed to be fading into the surrounding terrain.  Most were cut into the hillside and were covered with pine needles.  There was also a very strong odor of weed wafting through the trees – a very California moment. We arrived at the Redwood Canopy Tours for a two hour tour through the tops of some 800 year old trees.  I had changed from my work clothes into some rugged jeans to protect the work clothes.  I sat down on a rock to fill out the form where you promise not to sue them if you are damaged during the tour.  When I stood up I heard a loud rip and felt some breeze on my now exposed underwear.  My new jeans had failed miserably in the seat area.  If I was a superstitious guy I might have been nervous about the upcoming adventure.  Not being superstitious – I was just royally pissed off.  Luckily I still had the work pants in the car and quickly changed to save my fellow adventurers from serial views of my underwear.   The tour was so much fun as we were connecting to wires and sped from tree top to tree top.  There were platforms at each ending and we ended up as high as 150 feet above the ground.  There were six people in our group, 2 teachers, both named Lindsay, from just up the road in Massachusetts from us.  There was also a mother and son, Latinos, that really reminded me of my wife, the mother that is – full of life and energy.  The guides took good care of us and also delivered really fascinating nature talks at each platform.  It was a glorious day weather-wise and I truly enjoyed soaring through the trees.  It was something I probably wouldn’t do if I was visiting with my wife because she has a bad vertebra in her neck.  I captured some pictures taken by other people at the zip line course, to show what we did.  Today was a very good day.

Cali Home in Weed Country

Longest Ride on the Left after Walking Across this Bridge

This was So Much Fun!



Great Day in the Tree Tops!