Food

Breakfast: On Sunday, I went to the Crepe Place and had three rolled crepes with chocolate sauce. It was very good. I’d definitely recommend them, and they are good if you like to eat breakfast late. However, I wanted to get up and get out during the week, so the Crepe Place didn’t work out in the manner I was thinking of. I mainly stuck with Linda’s Breakfast Place that my friend Gwen suggested – its a typical diner-style food and good options. I mainly had the egg, bacon and pancake combo – if I have a good breakfast, I usually don’t need lunch, or if I do have lunch I have a late lunch/early dinner.

Dinner: On Saturday, after dealing with tearoom business, I drove to downtown Santa Cruz next to the boardwalk and ate there. I didn’t really have time to check out the boardwalk and I wish I had, but it really wasn’t part of the intention of my trip there – I tried to stay away from touristy areas for a reason. A bit too materialistic in my opinion. I had a burger and guacamole at a near by restaurant, unfortunately I didn’t remember the name. Whenever I was in downtown Santa Cruz on Pacific Avenue, I ate at Pizza My Heart that had good pizza – its open late too so if you went out and did shopping or explored during the day then ate late this is a good option. I ate here when I went shopping on Pacific Avenue and the last evening after the public circle and tea house spa appointment. One evening I drove out to San Jose to try Falafel’s Drive In as it was San Jose’s oldest restaurants. I had Peta bread and humus and onion rings. Really good food and I’m glad I went there. Being an Aquarius that is heavily influence by Capricorn, I planned the trip around the 5 senses and 5 elements; good food, amazing sights, sensual aromas and earthy textures. 5 elements; earth (beach/forest), air (mountain), water (beach/spa), fire (sun, creativity), Spirit (meditation, healing, etc). Capricorns tend to experience the world through those sense. On Tuesday, after my trip to Big Sur, I went to Saturn Cafe and I was really disappointed in my experience there. Firstly, my entree came before my appetizer – my waitress apologize but still, I had two very large plates of food. I must’ve been tired because I ordered something and it was totally not exactly what I expected which is my fault. I ordered nachos and it was expecting just cheese, and maybe guacamole but no, it was huge with other things that I didn’t like. If the waitress asked me if I wanted to choose the things on there then I would’ve done that. Didn’t occur to me to do that – but then again I was tired. What I ate was delicious but I felt really bad for not finishing everything. Those nachos could’ve easily fed 5 people by itself. If I had seen pictures on the menu or something and known that it was huge – again maybe the waitress should’ve said something too. I tried to be polite about it and they gave me a box to put the food to take home. I didn’t order anything else and left her a good tip. To make up for it I went over to Penny’s Ice Creme afterwords and had some yummy ice cream. It was the best ice cream I had ever too – expensive sure, but so worth it!! After shopping on Pacific Avenue one evening I went to a cupcake shop on a side street called Starz Cupcakes. They are very good.

Shopping

I did some shopping before my first Tea House Spa experience and stopped by a cool new and used bookstore on Pacific Avenue which is called Locos Bookstore . Since Santa Cruz is spiritually minded, it was nice to see the New Age/Metaphysical section right up front and not stuffed in the back of the store. I had to ask if they had tarot cards though, they keep them under the counter for whatever reason. I bought a book on Celtic Prayers and Incantations by Alexander Carmichael. I never seen a book on celtic prayers and incantations before. Thought it might give me some more substance in my practices. I also bought a new used tarot deck that was based on the Esoteric Design of the Secret Order of the Golden Dawn by US Games. Very cool imagery. I also happened upon the an herb shop called, The Happy Herb Shop I didn’t buy anything but it was a cool shop to check out.

Sunday, I went to the Capitola Art and Wine Festival as I mentioned in the Activities section in this series. I mentioned that there wasn’t a whole lot of art out there in my price range, but I did by a poster that Liz Lyons did. Apparently she’s a well known artist in the area and I swear I’ve seen her work before. Anyway, I didn’t notice that the poster was from a previous festival and not the art and wine festival of 2013 since she did that poster too. But I was mainly focusing on the art on the poster and not the date. (photo to the right not mine)

One day during the week, I think it was Monday, I went and did some shopping on Pacific Avenue. I discovered a really cool retro shop that had retro style dresses and bright accessories. My mom and I had been looking for a ‘little black dress’ and I found one in my size in one of those styles! I had always love the retro style dress and I could never find a size that fit me. So I bought it along with a pair of earrings. I also went to a metaphysical store on the other end of Pacific Avenue called Serpent’s Kiss and bought a few things there. I had been looking for a Labordorite ring as it’s good for protection against Psychic vampires and attacks… and thought this trip was a good time to buy it. I found one for $36 at Serpent’s Kiss. I also bought these cool votive spell candles for $6 each; one for prosperity and cleansing. I found a really cool pyramid necklace and pyramids are a sacred symbol to me.

I bought a few things at Big Sur too. It was expensive so I didn’t buy much. I bought petrified wood and two post cards.

I went to the Land of Medicine Buddha on the last full morning and really enjoyed my experience there. I felt a deep connection to Ksitigarbha – the destroyer of Negative and Troublesome thoughts and bought my first statue of him there.

Jump to California Seventeen: Activities Part II

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Big Sur: After finding more about Big Sur when trying to go to Sand Dollar beach but ended up at Manresa beach, I decided to go to Big Sur on Tuesday. I had originally planned to do a lot of studying at the Rosicrucian Library but had difficulty setting up appointments, so I just let it go. It allowed me some more spare time in my schedule and I think the universe was saying go out and see the world and not be cooped up in a library surrounded by books. AND I am so glad I did. Big Sur blew my mind away as well as worries – more than books did; how could you think of your worries when you could be driving a long a big ass mountain edge? Or standing in front of ‘majestic-as-fuck’ redwood trees? and be standing in a sea of aromas and energy?? Seriously!? I did an earth meditation while in the redwood forest and really felt them grounding me and the energy surging through me. I wish I had more time to walk some of the longer trails of Big Sur, but I wanted to go to Jade Cove and a beach there. But I found out that Jade Cove had a 30 ft drop that is only achievable by a rope and I had difficulties finding it. The signs only faced one way so I missed it on the way down and had to spend more time driving – I didn’t mind, it was a beautiful drive and I love driving. I talked to someone who was climbing up from that cove and asked about it and they said that you’d had to be pretty fit in order to go down to the cove. Disappointed. I wanted to pick up some jade!! Oh well. At least I had been to the spot. It was a drive, and definitely a day trip, but totally worth it if you’re into nature and dramatic scenery. Another thing that was disappointing was that the wind was ripping when I was there, so on the turnouts it was difficult to stop and get out and take pictures. At one turnout the wind was so rapid that it could’ve ripped the door off my car if it was older. Definitely a must see if you’re willing to do the drive.

San Jose Flea Market: I had heard about the San Jose Flea Market a while back as a must do while in San Jose, or the Bay Area. Unfortunately this market is only open later in the week, and the best times to go were the weekend which I couldn’t do. So I scheduled to go on a Wednesday. So disappointing!! Only 300 vendors were out and it didn’t have the same vibe – totally deserted and a ghost-town. I did stop by a makeup/jewelry vendor and got a great deal on nail polishes; 6 for $5 and I bought a flower clip for $1. But it totally wasn’t what I was expecting. If I’m ever back in California, I definitely need to go back there and get the full experience! It was cool to see the produce vendors and some of the household vendors, but there wasn’t anything too interesting. There was a decent shoe vendor that had flats for sale for $10, but the size I’m normally it was a tad too small, so that was unfortunate. I think I came back to Santa Cruz early that day. (Left photo Cred: Flea Market Facebook Page)

Glow Candle Lounge:  Since this was a spiritual retreat, I wanted to schedule in an artistic expression, so I was looking for some art things to do and came across a more sophisticated model of the ‘Plaster Fun Time’ studio model – where you go in pay a flat fee and pay for the product you’ll be decorating and come out with a finished product. I had scheduled to do Petroglyph which is a spin off of this but their picked up time was a day more than Glow Candle’s. So I only could to glow candle. Since I was also celebrating mabon at the same time I decided it’d be fun to do a fall themed candle and then I also created a candle to go into my studio – eventually. Glow Candle Lounge I’d definitely do again and was the right activity for the idea I was going for. I wanted to release any unwanted energy… and this totally did the trick!

The process is this; you go in and they greet you and tell you the steps; choosing the mold, then the color wax, and shapes called pips, and then finally the scent and/or glitter if you want it. For the fall candle I did a hexagonal shape and for my studio candle I did the star. Then you start breaking up the wax into small pieces – which is the time consuming process. The smaller the pieces the more colors comes through – difficult to remember especially if you are on a time constraint. The only issue was, that yeah it was a bit pricey… a whopping total of $42 for two candles in the $10-20 range… but it was special and I had budgeted it into my spending there. If money isn’t a problem for you, and want to do a fun activity for the reason I had, go for it! They do have smaller candles that cost less, but they do have a $9 studio fee, which covers more than one candle. So at that price, you kinda want to take advantage of your time there.

San Jose Museum of Quilt and Textiles: After picking up my Candles on Thursday I went over and did the San Jose Museum of Quilt and Textiles. This is a very small museum that can easily be done in an hour or less. It is literally one gallery room and a conference room that had quilts. The quilts though were amazing from a design perspective. I don’t know much about the quilting aspect of it, but I went to get some inspiration for geometric and pattern designs and this definitely was the right thing to go to! I also got to use my ‘student discount’ here as well. At the end they had a pretty impressive gift shop, I just wished they had more quilt items – like designs of the quilts on postcards. I ended up buying their 25 pack of postcards for their anniversary. I just wished I had some money left over to buy a quilt. But the one I liked was over $300 dollars. Oh well, if I ever come back, I’ll have to purchase one or maybe I can do so online or something. If you’re into design or textiles this museum is definitely worth checking out.

Land of Medicine Buddha: Keep in mind this trip was planned intuitively for over 6 months. With the help of another psychic who was from the area and my own intuition and card reading abilities, I picked things as they came to me and while speaking with that psychic (who is my friend Gwen). We asked questions and collaborated about what to do and while planning I wanted to put in a retreat center, but since the retreat center closed at 5 pm, it was difficult to get to later in the day which is when I had planned to go several times during the week. My times were a bit off so this was another thing that didn’t go exactly as planned – which was fine by me. Going on the last day created the same effect as going at the end of the day several times. Land of Medicine Buddha is nestled in a redwood forest on a mountain. I didn’t know much about the sites there upon arrival, but did know what Land of Medicine Buddha was. Since the whole point of this trip to California was to relieve some anger, pain, negative thoughts, and worries I picked places that were peaceful, spiritual and healing. Little did I know there was a Buddhist figure called Ksitigarbha. His main intentions were to dispel negative or troublesome thoughts. I thought to myself, how perfect for the intention of this trip! And upon meditating in front of his statue, he did have an affect on me. I’ll go into the spiritual effects in the Spiritualism section of this series.

Jump to California Seventeen:  Activities – Part 1

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The so called “format” of my trip consisted of an activity in the late morning/afternoon and then an activity in the late afternoon/early evening and if I was up for it something relaxing at night. I was worried that I wouldn’t have enough strength to do it all because of my hypothyroidism, but thankfully my body cooperated with me and I was able to do it all (or most of it all)! I had been feeling a lot more energized and upbeat before the trip which was a good sign. I was able to do DC with no problem.

Teahouse Spa: After dealing with that tearoom business, I was looking forward to doing some hard-core relaxing. I went to go eat somewhere near the boardwalk (but didn’t have time to walk around) and headed to Teahouse Spa afterwords. I had never been to a Spa like that before. It totally relaxed me and was a great beginning to my week. Really took my mind off some things and I did a water meditation which I believe to have jump started the healing process a little bit for the week. They had to fit me in a bit later in the evening, but I took the opportunity to walk around downtown Santa Cruz a little bit and got a taste for it. Saturday night downtown Santa Cruz is a little roudy if you ask me. It was relatively safe, but you surely didn’t want to ‘run’ into anyone if you catch my drift. But the rest of the week was fine, Saturday night is a huge party night for Santa Cruz.

Rosicrucian Park/Egyptian Museum: On Sunday, I met up my friend Gwen and we went to the Rosicrucian Park and their Egyptian Museum together. Definitely a must see if you’re into mysticism and spirituality. We took a tour of the park and then ended up in the library for a few hours and then saw the Egyptian museum. This museum is huge! I even got some inspiration for my studio from it. They had a cool reading room with a middle eastern vibe to it and had a bed canopy hanging from the ceiling and had the drapes attached to the walls. I found a canopy on ebay in the colors that I am using for my studio and bought it. I have high ceilings so it should work out. If you’re into Egyptian history you should totally see the museum. They have a replica of a temple, I unfortunately forgot which temple it is. Also by being a member of the Rosicrucian Order I got to go in free and got to bring Gwen as a guest so she didn’t have to pay anything.

Capitola Art and Wine Festival: As per my hostess’s suggestion I went to the Capitola Art and Wine festival the next day on Sunday. I drove out to Capitola which is only a few minutes away and ate lunch before I went to the festival. Headed down, bought my wine tokens and had a blast. I only drank about 3 glasses since I had to drive home. I walked around for a bit and I wanted to buy something but a lot of the art there was over my price range unfortunately. There weren’t that many that were selling prints or posters or something like that. Towards the end of the walk I found an artist that does linocuts and then colors them in. I feel like I’ve seen her art before and see seems to be a well known artist to the area. Capitola is a quint town that is a definite must see, especially if your around during the Art and Wine Festival. I then ate dinner in an near by Mexican restaurant and drove home.

Manresa Beach: I don’t think I need to go more into detail about this beach, since I told its’ story over in the Logistics section. Being an avid beach goer and beachcomber I was over the moon that I had the opportunity to pick up sand dollars. I think it was OK to pick them up because it was off season. Anyway, I managed to bring home a handful of sand dollars for my mom who is obsessed with anything and everything about the beach. It was a cool experience to pick up a sand dollar casually like you would a shell or rock. A lot of them I found to have holes in the center, so I don’t know if something ate them or it was just the way the waves brought them in but I did find a few whole ones.

Well that concludes the activities section of part 1! I’ll post activities section part 2 sometime later in the week. 🙂

Jump to California Seventeen: Logistics

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Everything went relatively well. Except my flight home from DC cut the amount of packing time I had planned for for California so it made me late to the airport. But I was able to get to my flight on time. The men I had sat next to on the way to Houston and then to San Jose were friendly (in the good way) the one I sat next to on the way to San Jose gave me a few suggestions for Santa Cruz. When I looked them up when I got the chance they weren’t exactly what I was looking for. I arrived in San Jose okay and was able to call for a shuttle with no problem. I’m really glad I decided to stay in a hotel room for a night because I was able to get transportation to and from the airport for free. I chose the San Jose Airport Garden Hotel because it was right near the airport and was really convenient for transitioning.  I got transportation to the airport for free from Enterprise when I dropped off my car and I didn’t have to pay for a taxi or take the metro.

Another thing that came up when renting the Car online was that it was cheaper to do so in San Jose than to pick it up in Santa Cruz. So I saved money by switching pick up locations. I also saved money with Enterprise because they gave me the 25 age price instead of the underage price. I was thrilled to hear that – since the car ended up costing $30 cheaper than I had originally saved up for. Enterprise may be expensive if you rent from them directly (which I didn’t and rented from Carrentals.com) but I was able to SAVE a lot of money with them! I also got a free upgrade upon arrival because I think they were sorry that they made me wait for almost 2 hours to be picked up from the Hotel. So I got to drive a nice car for the week! Awesome! Also, GPS! If you have one and go to another state and plan on renting a car, definitely take your GPS. Helped me a ton to get me around. I’d be totally lost if I didn’t have it with me.

I arrived to Caroline’s Cottage safely and smoothly and the highway to get there CA-17 made a huge impression on me, which is why I decided to name this series after it. That highway was through the mountain and unfortunately with roads that are fast and curvy you tend to use a lot of gas or at least I do. So I had to fill up the tank at the beginning of the week and the end. I ended up driving 666 miles in 6 days!! Devil’s number!

Upon arrival, Caroline showed me around her property and told me about some things to check out and do. One thing I decided to go to from Caroline’s suggestions was the Capitola Art and Wine festival. So glad I did!

Later in the week, a scheduling error came up where I didn’t realize that airbnb scheduled mornings instead of nights. So I was technically didn’t book Thursday night at the cottage whoops! Which had caused a bit of an overbooking for Caroline which I felt bad for. But since I had to change my flight to the night flight and I had planned on the morning flight to get the afternoon of Friday the 13th so I ended up not being able to use that day/night, but it didn’t matter in the end, but I theoretically was able to use that unused day for Thursday night. Caroline was very accommodating and gracious and allowed me to sleep somewhere else in her house for the night. I didn’t mind since it was only an evening!! The only ‘rule’ I had in terms of working things out was that I couldn’t find somewhere else to sleep because I had already had to do that with the first night. So BEWARE!!  If you use Airbnb for your travels, it goes until the next morning and not night. I think if you book at a hotel it goes until the next night, which is confusing. Oh well!

My mom had asked me if there were money surprises during the week, and I hadn’t really come up with something. In order to make sure I had enough money for the trip I was able to find most of the prices online at website and budget in some of the activities that cost little more – like the candle making, and trip to Big Sur. I was able to use a student discount at the San Jose Museum of Quilt and Textiles. One thing I learned was, if you are still in your 20s and look like you can still be a college student and did go to college, take advantage of that discount! I saved about $2 for museum admission by doing that.

Also make sure to include the addresses for your locations on your itinerary, for some reason I always seem to leave that piece of information out. So I had to spend an evening on line writing the addresses down. AND double check your locations. I wanted to go to a beach called Sand Dollar beach and find sand dollars, but when I googled the address it showed me an address in a town next over called Wastonville. I had remembered reading about a Sand Dollar beach in Big Sur, but for whatever reason when I tried to search for that address, the Wastonville address showed up and didn’t catch my mistake until I got to Wastonville. But anyway, it was a happy mistake, because the beach next to the Sand Dollar beach (that happened to be a private beach) was a state beach called Manresa, and I was still able to pick up Sand Dollars!! I feel like that was supposed to happen, because it led me to the goal/intention of that trip in a shorter distance. I eventually went to Big Sur anyway, but didn’t have to make that special trip to Sand Dollar beach because I had already picked up my sand dollars!

I had to spend Saturday afternoon dealing with a work situation; as the Tearoom had shutdown temporarily its’ establishment while I was in DC. Caroline was very gracious in letting me use her office to print out an application for a license that I needed to fill out and get back to them by the end of the week. So I was able to fill it out and then sent it off on Monday. That kind of dampened my arrival mood, but I wanted to get it done and out of the way so I didn’t have to worry about it for the rest of the week.

Overall the trip went pretty smoothly. There was a 2 hour delay coming home because of bad weather in Houston, which meant that I didn’t actually get home until 2:30 in the morning. This trip was a huge accomplishment for me especially in terms of money.

Jump to California Seventeen: Introduction – Numerology

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Overview Hello! I am back from my trip to California. Since I’ve been home, I’ve been thinking of ways to write about my trip and I’ve decided to do a little series on here. I did so much and covered so much and there were so many aspects and dimensions of my trip that it needs to be written in this way. So over the next few weeks/month I’m going to be writing about my trip. I’m calling it, “California Seventeen” because that was the highway that spanned from Santa Cruz to San Jose in which I split my time. As a result I drove 666 miles in 6 days. Yikes.

Anyway, here is how the series will be split up:

Introduction : California Seventeen Numerology

I      Logistics

II    Activities

III  Materialism

IIII Spiritualism and Mysticism

V    The Arts
– Glow Candle and made 2 candles
– Museum of Quilt and Textiles
– Capitola Art and Wine Festival
VI   The People