User:(WT-en) RuTemple

Hi, I currently live in SF, love to travel on the cheap, and really love wiki style grass roots information sharing.

I've lived in:
 * Redwood City California currently.
 * San Francisco, California
 * Santa Cruz, California
 * the Twin Cities, Minnesota
 * near Plymouth, Massachusetts

I've driven across the country a few times, including with my folks on vacation when growing up, and as an adult. Road trips and car camping are a grand way to see the country, especially when you remember to get out and walk.

Rather than start a to do list on a separate page, I'm starting one here, conserving space and all that.

To Do
St. Paul, MN
 * Is a one-sentence stub entry as of 2004-May 26. horrors!

Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz, CA

Bookstores

 * Book Shop Santa Cruz, 1520 Pacific Avenue, Santa Cruz, CA 94060. tel. 831-423-0900. 10:00am-10:00pm daily.
 * Logos Bookstore, 1117 Pacific Avenue, Santa Cruz, CA 95060. tel. 831 427-5100, fax 831 427-5107. huge inventory of new and used books, tapes, CDs.
 * Chimney Sweep Books, 419 Cedar Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95060-4304. tel. 831-458-1044. This is where to go for antiquinarian and collectors' books.
 * Gateways Books and Gifts, 1018 Pacific Avenue, Santa Cruz, CA 95060. tel. 831-429-9600. Don't mind the smells and bells, here's philosophy to new age books, cards, art and gifts.
 * Herland Bookstore, 1014 Cedar Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95060. tel 831 429-6636. Lesbian and feminist book store par excellence.
 * Capilota Book Cafe, 1475 41st Avenue, Capitola, CA 95010. tel. 831 462-4415. Following Hwy. 1 around that northern rim of the Monterey Bay, take the 41st Ave. Exit towards the water, and just past the one shopping mall in the region to a clump of truly deligthful stores. The Capitola Book Cafe has readings, events, and the best carrot soup you ever tasted. Go to the little drugstore next door for a cheap ice cream cone on a hot day, before heading over a few steps to Palace Arts & Office Supply for an art materials fix, or across the parking lot to OSH a hardware store enthusiast's dream and source of Saturday fix-it project necessities.
 * Bookworks, 36 Rancho Del Mar Shopping Center, off Soquel Avenue at the State Park Drive exit "towards the mountain side" off Hwy. 1.

Understand
The Santa Cruz metro area comprises a region on the coast Hwy. 1, on the ocean side of the coastal mountains coming downhill from the San Jose area on Hwy. 17 and the smaller winding-through-the-redwoods Hwy 9 through Los Gatos, through Boulder Creek, Ben Lomond, Felton with its community dance hall and historic covered bridge, Scotts Valley, and east along the northern rim of Monterey Bay encompassing Capitola, Live Oak, Soquel, Aptos; continuing southeast around the bay to Watsonville, a gateway to the agricultural lands of the Pajaro River valley around to the East of Monterey Bay. Each of these towns, villages and unincorporated areas has its own flavor and signature sights and sounds.

See
Mission Santa Cruz, the "hard-luck" Mission, is set back from main arteries that curve around its hilltop, is reached from Water Street, between Hwy 1/Mission Street and the start of Pacific Avenue downtown.

Cathedral Grove, a crown of redwood trees where Misison-era Padres traveled up from the Aptos River to pray, is now part of the land owned and tended by Monte Toyon, a church camp up Cathedral Hill from Trout Gulch off Soquel Avenue in Aptos.

Aptos State Park
Aptos, the town and park, get their name from the Ohlone Indian term Awatos, for the meeting place by the waters - the stream canyon is so steep as to be impassable, and folks traveling up and down the coast on the ocean side of the hills would have to come down nearly to the beach to get through the area, so it became a meeting and trading place prior to the Mission area.

General ideas
How odd. What I think of as the Bis Sur region (between Monterey Bay and Santa Barbara) is written up as Central Coast, and what I think of as the Central Coast (Between Monterey Bay/Santa Cruz and San Francisco) doesn't appear to exist - or I haven't found it yet. How odd. No Half Moon Bay, no Pacifica (though there's a placeholder page for Pacifica linked from the Peninsula page). Later when there is time, I'll start writing up the little towns in my kickin' around region, and get to discussing the categorizing/naming of regions with other folks here.
 * There aren't addresses or hours on any of the restaurants yet.
 * There's no mention of Capitola, Soquel, Aptos...
 * the Monterey listing is blank so far - I can do something about that!
 * Check out, Salinas and Carmel - blank so far listings.
 * Check out [central coast] listings

Silicon Valley covers the South Bay area.

Tucson, Arizona
 * Has a darn good start!
 * add in some shopping

San Antonio is pretty sparse yet.

General
Add book arts and museums to my main "home" places-of-the-heart: Twin Cities, Santa Cruz/Monterey Bay, and SF.

Quick-town article headers from the templates page.

Place_name is in Region_name.