Santa Cruz
We drove the RV down to Santa Cruz to find the Santa Cruz Surf School because our 15 year old wants to play in the big waves. We chose this particular school because it was the only one that had it's schedule listed on-line, so we could get in on such short notice. We filled in the registration form on Sunday night, and they called me on Monday morning to verify that we really wanted to surf that same day. Everyone there was fun, knowledgeable, and professional; I'd recommend it to anyone. After a brief land-lesson, we carried our boards down to the beach and started paddling out. They warned us that it was an exceptionally big-wave day, and it was a lot more work than I thought it would be, but I was able to ride several waves in. They encourage you to ride in the first few in an "arch" position to get a feel for controlling the board without worrying about trying to stand up. After a while, one of the instructors helped me catch a good wave, and I was able to stand up and ride it in almost as if I knew what I was doing! That was enough of an accomplishment for me, and I quit while I was ahead. I was starting to feel a little sick from the combination of cheese-dogs, salt water, exertion, and wave action. Here's a picture of the two of us after we finished up our lesson time.

After surfing, we headed back to the RV to get changed, and then walked down to the Showgun Japanese restaurant. I really wanted to get some Sushi while we were on the west coast, and was not disappointed. The rolls were good, and the nigiri was huge! The kids had teriaki, of course, and Sam made a big deal about the sushi being gross. ;-)
Finally, it was back to the rig, and on the road toward sequoia National Park to see the big trees. We only drove until about 11:00 and sacked out in the Wal-Mart in Los Banos. Tomorrow, we'll see the big trees!