We have always loved the name Santa Cruz (it sounds cool, right?) so we were happy to include Santa Cruz Ranch RV Resort as one of our Thousand Trail parks. The park is very small and tight (most of the Trails Collection parks seem to be), but the location is good and it’s a nice, clean park.

Mallone’s is a nice, casual bar and restaurant about a half mile from the RV Park we stayed at. We walked there a couple of times for dinner and the food was really good! They also have live entertainment on weekends. We were surprised to find a blues/classic rock band that we really liked (we even got to dance some).

Speaking of classic rock, you may know we are huge Doobie Brothers fans, so we had to pay tribute to their song Neal’s Fandango and take a drive through ‘the hills above Santa Cruz.’ Glad we did, we found Regale, a beautiful winery to have lunch at. The setting was incredible, the pizza was great, and the wine was very good!

Santa Cruz’s waterfront has a boardwalk, but the entire length is an amusement park, not shops, restaurants, and hotels like we’re used to. There is also a wharf that has several restaurants. We stopped at Makai for lunch and had a great chat with the bartender. He suggested a drive from the wharf area up to the Natural Bridges State Beach, so we did that the next day.

We also took a day trip to Monterey.

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And another one to Capitola. Capitola is a really small, really cute beach town. We had a great dinner there at Margaritaville, which we were happy to learn is NOT part of the famed Jimmy Buffet chain and existed long before the Margaritaville-Buffet restaurants. Nothing against Jimmy Buffet but we like to eat local when we can. They had a beautiful view and great authentic Mexican food!