Santa Cruz - Day 3

Today we got up and went to Felton (about 3 miles away from our hotel) to ride on the Roaring Camp Railroad.  It is a 19th century steam train ride through redwood groves and up a winding narrow gauge grade to the summit of Bear Mountain.  It takes about an hour and a half and is really fun and the scenery is great.

The conductor was a friendly old guy who narrated the history of the railroad during the train ride.

There were two more train cars and a small engine attached to our railroad car, but in order to make it up the hill through a switch-back they had to detach the two cars and have the small engine push them up behind us to reconnect at the top.  We had a front row view to them doing all the disconnecting and reconnecting of the cars.  Very interesting.

That night we drove to Capitola-by-the-Sea and had dinner at the Shadowbrook Restaurant.  It was built in 1947 and is world famous.  Tim and I came here for our first anniversary over 23 years ago and it still looks the same now.  They have a tram that takes you down the hill to the restaurant, which sits on one of the waterways leading to the ocean.  The food is great and the atmosphere has a nice, old world charm to it.