Big Trees in Santa Cruz

After Ted and Jen's wedding, we headed down to Santa Cruz, one of our favorite places on the west coast. Our very close friends Jenny and Andrew live there.  We used to work in the Antarctic with both of them.  We make a point of visiting every couple of years.  Holly, Mike, and Ned joined us for the trip and hopefully love Santa Cruz (and Jenny and Andrew) as much as we do!  We rented a beautiful house that you can see in some of the pictures.

Our first evening in Santa Cruz.  Gotta love those toes!


My boys in their (unplanned) matching outfits

Hello? It's Ned! In his butter lamb t-shirt.  Yes, that is a lamb made entirely of butter, a Buffalo Easter tradition.

Andrew and Holly

On Monday, we went up to Henry Cowell State Park to see a redwood forest.  These huge, beautiful trees are a quick 15 minute drive from Santa Cruz and the beach.  No wonder Jenny stayed here after college!  Here Elliott and I are inside of a tree.

Sisters and our boys (thanks to Andrew for the photo)

The redwood grow in tight circles with the parent in the middle and their spawn surrounding them.  The cavity we are standing inside of in the photo above was created by a fire.  In the picture below, we're looking up inside the cavity where you can see the soot from the fire.

Cool kid (another photo by Andrew. He is quite the photographer.  He just had a photo on the home page of National Geographic!)

Big trees

Andrew's big trees

Jenny and Ned (thanks again, Andrew)

Resting on a bench carved from a log

"Ned, say cheese."
No smiles.
"Ned, what is your favorite kind of cheese?"
"Yellow cheese!!!"

We all got a good laugh out of that.  Another photo from Andrew.

The whole bunch, if you include Andrew behind the lens, in front of a cross section of a huge tree.