See you later, Santa Cruz

Santa Cruz from above on my flight home

Santa Cruz was a blast, I had so much fun! Thanks to Josh and all my NY travel buddies, Diana, Matt & Lisa, who made my first trip to Santa Cruz such a blast!

Santa Cruz - Check List

✔ Beach - Dog Beach & Beach Yoga

✔ Hiking

✔ Yummy Food & Desserts, including an ice cream sandwich off!

✔ Touring the major tourist spots - Downtown, Santa Cruz Beach & boardwalk, Capitola, Portola

✔ Napa & Wine Tasting

✔ Self Reflection, Rest & Relaxation (R&R) - even got a meditation crystal!

✔ Revamping Josh’s brand & getting him a girl (#TeamLauren)

〰️ Creating a viral music video 🎶 (Work in Progress), get excited for this collab for the knee knocker!

I’ll leave you with my favorite photo of Santa Cruz

Sunset after beach yoga

Santa Cruzing - Week 3

The time has come, this is my final week in Santa Cruz 😢

Here is my final weekly recap

August 27

  • Drive down West Cliff Drive
    West Cliff Drive goes along the coast of Santa Cruz and is a very scenic road to walk or drive down, a must see while you are in town

  • Searching for elephant seals at Año Nuevo State Park
    This state park is about 45 minutes away from Santa Cruz and known for having elephant seals. In fact, hundreds of elephant seals make their way to Año Nuevo park around Valentine’s Day to mate - I guess they like to celebrate as well! This State park is fun because you go through various types of terrain in order to get to the shore where the elephant seals are location, from the dry dessert to fields of what looked like wheat to the mountains to the beach! This park was not too filled with tourist, which was a nice treat.

  • Tacos at Taqueria Vallarta
    Yes we stopped by another Taqueria Vallarta for more TACOS!

August 28

  • Soaking in the sun at 4 Mile Beach
    A gorgeous beach off the highway, great spot for locals and not infiltrated with tourists

  • Cookies & Ice Cream from Pacific Cookie Company

  • Live Music at Abbott Square Market
    Local outdoor hangout where you can get food and listen to live music. While we were there, I discovered a new band, Brain Food, which performed some good vibe music you can dance to

  • Dinner at Gabriella Café
    Cute little Italian restaurant with what is a contender for the best Bolognese I’ve had! Also a cute date spot for those of you looking for a romantic date spot 😉

August 29

  • Breakfast at Jack in the Box

    This was my first time ever at Jack in the Box, I ordered a chicken tater melt!

  • Hiking the Marin Headlands via San Francisco
    We hiked about ~8 miles for 5-6 hours (with pitstops) at the Marin Headlands. The hike was definitely a long one, but definitely worth it! The day was so foggy, we saw the clouds rolling in and eventually even made are way up in the clouds as we made our way up to the top of the mountains! Along the hike we came across some war sites, including a bunkers and Hill 88, where missiles were held during the Cold War - a hidden gem for any history lover!
    We also shot some videos for a secret project we are working on!

  • Drive by and dinner in Sausalito
    After the hike, we drove around Sausalito’s downtown, which had a very New England meets Greece vibe, it was very New England, but had homes embedded in the mountains like Santorini. After the quick tour of the small town, we grabbed dinner at a local Thai restaurant before the 2 hour drive back to Santa Cruz

August 30

  • Watching seals at the Santa Cruz Wharf
    We found SO MANY seals at the wharf today, they were so fun (and loud) to watch!

  • Walking the Santa Cruz Boardwalk

  • Downtown for more cookies from Pacific Cookie Company & some bubble tea

August 31

  • Relaxing at Black’s Beach after work

  • Strolling downtown Pleasure Point, Portola

    • Dinner at Pleasure Pizza East Side Eatery
      Known for their award winning chilling, the best in Santa Cruz!

    • Ice cream bon bons at The Penny Ice Creamery

September 1

  • Beach Yoga at Corcoran Beach!
    Beach yoga is one of my favorite things to do, and on top of this, this was a sunset beach yoga session - so I was super excited to be able to do this AND share this with my friend Josh, who has not only never done beach yoga, but yoga in general!
    We took a class with Outdoor Yoga Santa Cruz, which provides you headsets while you do the yoga, kind of like a silent disco, which was great, so I did not have any issues hearing the instructor or the music/sounds that were being played.
    If you have not tried beach yoga before, you definitely need to try it!

  • Celebrating Lauren’s birthday at Riva Fish House on the Santa Cruz Wharf
    Happy Birthday Lauren!!! We met Lauren a few days ago and celebrated her birthday with her; for those of you who know me, you know I love birthdays and made sure that we celebrated her big day! I am a big fan of Lauren and needless to say I am #TeamLauren for Josh!

September 2 - Final Day in Santa Cruz

  • Dinner at Michelin Guide recommended Alderwood
    For my final hours and meal in Santa Cruz, we went to Alderwood. The food at Alderwood was AMAZING, I can definitely see why they are on the Michelin Guide! I ordered 1 oyster, pomme frites & a cheeseburger. I wanted to order dessert, but sadly was too full to even attempt it. Everything was super delicious (and reasonably priced, the cheeseburgers were only $16), I wish I had a larger stomach so I could eat more!

So sad to be leaving Santa Cruz, but working NY hours while being on Pacific Time definitely takes a toll on you!

Santa Cruzing - Week 2

Week 2 here we go! Here’s a recap from Week 2 of my time in Santa Cruz!

August 21

  • Pipeline Trail at Henry Cowell State Park in Felton, CA
    This is one of the most gorgeous hikes I’ve done, the Redwoods here are GORGEOUS, even bigger and prettier than the other Redwood parks I have been to so far this trip and perhaps one of the most popular for this park.

  • Tacos at Taqueria Vallarta

August 22

  • Capitola

    • Lunch at Zelda’s on the Beach
      I bumped into an old co worker from AMEX while we were having lunch, what a small world!

    • Ice Cream at Polar Bear
      Polar Bear has so many fun and unique flavors categorized by vanillas and chocolates to coffees and caramels to fruits and sorbets, needless to say I was very happy with the variety of flavors! I ultimately went with a double scoop of lavender & Honey and Olallieberry & Honey, which did not disappoint and I will definitely be returning!

August 25

  • Hanging out with Ivy at Black’s Beach after work

  • Dinner at Café Gratitude
    Café Gratitude is a vegan restaurant, which was surprisingly delicious! I had a delicious sandwich! Fun story - I did not know Café Gratitude was a chain and the first time I went was this past April with my friend Yasmine in Venice, CA.

August 26

  • Road trip to NAPA!
    Matt, Lisa & I took a road trip to Napa, my first time to NAPA! We made it to 3 wineries:

    • Rutherford Hill Winery

    • V. Sattui Winery

    • Priest Ranch Winery

    Check out my last blog post on Napa for more details: https://www.elizabethtam.com/blog/2021/8/26/first-trip-to-napa

  • Dinner at In-N-Out & a pit stop at Petco to get Luke the cat a cat toy

    Luke’s dad never got him any toys, what a sad kitty

  • Bonfire at Black’s Beach

    We made another bonfire, but came prepared with s’mores this time - yum!

That’s it for Week 2 in Santa Cruz!

Photoshoot at Seabright Beach

A few days ago I shot with Paul of EyeOn Photography at Seabright Beach. This beach was great for some not so typical beach photo shoot.

20210820-_DSC1544-Edit.jpg

Check out some of my favorite shots from the day! We did a few beach shots and a few in the “vegetation” as he called it.

Santa Cruzing - Week 1

Wow, what a week! This is my first time to Santa Cruz and Josh did not disappoint, he gave my friend Diana and I quite the tour of Santa Cruz this past week! Let me share a recap all the fun things we did our first week in Santa Cruz!

August 13 - Arrive in Santa Cruz

  • 1st stop… In -N-Out
    I ordered a Double Double & strawberry milkshake, what more do you need? 😋

August 14

  • Downtown Santa Cruz
    The downtown is a few blocks long, with few local shops, no big names and lots of restaurants and local performers playing on the sidewalks

  • Lighthouse State Park
    This is such a cute local dog park, perfect for Josh’s dog Ivy!

  • Hiking at the Land of Medicine Buddha - Soquel, CA
    We visited the Land of the Medicine Buddha and hiked the 5.6 mile trail in the Redwood Forest! The trail was a lot of fun, we went throughout the Redwood Forest and came upon some Buddhist relics along the way.
    The day before Josh had kept talking about signs and how they manifest themselves. Earlier that day, Diana had wanted to buy Pokémon socks, but dropped them along the way and sadly did not. If you look at shrine photo, there is a pokeball… if that is not a sign, I don’t know what is!!

  • Dinner at in the West End at West End Tavern
    I met Josh’s sister for the first time, after knowing him for 6 years!


August 15

  • Santa Cruz Farmer’s Market - local farmers and artisans selling their produce and goods with some live local music

  • Tamales & Pan Dulce at El Rosal Bakery
    This bakery had a HUGE variety of different types of pan (spanish for bread), they were all so pretty and tasty! They rate themselves for having the #1 tamale in town, they were not my #1 but pretty tasty!

  • Santa Cruz Wharf

    • Drinks at Makai Island Kitchen & Groggery
      This cute Hawaiian restaurant is super cute with fun decor and drinks! While sitting at the bar, my friends & I thought we were going crazy, but the entire back room rotates! If you go, I recommend getting a fun drink and sitting at the bar in that room!

  • Santa Cruz Boardwalk - boardwalk rides, games and boardwalk food!

  • Capitola - cute part of town with cute shops and restaurants

August 16

  • Dinner at The Crow’s Nest - cute little spot for Happy Hour at Twin Lakes State Beach overlooking the beach

  • Drinks (and open mic nite) at MeloMelo Kava Bar
    We downtown with the intention of getting cookies and ended up at this Kava bar, not realizing that it was not an alcohol bar but a kava bar. For those of you who don't know what kava is, it is a psychedelic root that literally means “intoxicating pepper.” According to WebMD, “kava contains substances called kavapyrones. They act much like alcohol on your brain, making you feel calm, relaxed, and happy. The plant is also thought to relieve pain, prevent seizures, and relax muscles.”

  • Cookies from Pacific Cookie Company
    The sweet aroma of cookies fills the store as soon as you walk in, there is a fun variety of cookies, my favorite was the “Almond Joe” - a twist of your classic chocolate chip cookie with nuts and coconut shreds, yummy! This reminded me of Diddy Reese cookies in Westwood, CA, however more flavors and the option of ice cream from local ice cream company, Marianne’s!

August 18

  • Hiking at Fall Creek State Park at Henry Cowell Redwoods Park in Felton, CA

August 19

  • Bonfire at Black Point Beach in Twin Lakes State Beach
    This was my first bon fire at the beach, it was COLD, but so much fun!

  • Matt & Lisa Arrive from NJ
    We had a few more friends arrive

August 20

That’s it for week 1 in Santa Cruz! Stay tuned for what we do in week 2 and please share any recs you may have on things to do and places to see!

Santa Cruz, here I come!

I’m headed off to Santa Cruz for some R&R, self reflection, destress and detox from my recent breakup and most importantly FUN!

Santa Cruz

I realized I have not really taken a real vacation since the pandemic started. My last trip this past April was a bit of a staycation, my friends who I was with were working most of the time, as was I, so did not have a full vacation. This trip will be similar in regards to working while I am there, but I am planning to take off on Friday and with a different mindset and goal in mind to relax.

It should be an interesting trip, my friend Diana and I will be going and staying with old co-worker Josh, who graciously offered to let us stay with him. A friend from my recent past and friend from my current day. Josh has taken a more spiritual path since he moved back to Santa Cruz from NYC a few years ago, I am hoping he can share some of his insights with me.

After my break up, I was in a bit of shambles to say the least, but it has been over a month since the initial conversation we had, and while I am not 100% better, I am in a better place with where I am in regards to everything. All of my friends have told me, to focus on myself during this time, so I am hoping this trip will also give me more insights into myself and what I want and need.

Please feel free to share your stories and journeys, I would love to hear them!