Finding Sweet Spots in Santa Cruz

The LONG wait is over. . .Yes, ladies and gentlemen, at long last and after many failed attempts, we have found decent coffee in this otherwise progressive city of 55,000. It wasn't easy. I was beginning to feel like a member of one of the detective units on Law and Order, the 'coffee addicts unit', if you will. After fishing around the neighborhoods kind of aimlessly and haphazard, and after spending far too much money on terrible espresso, we decided to become (a)more deliberate and (b) to begin gathering information from more trustworthy sources-- as in more trustworthy than the local weekly periodicals and/or online customer reviews- I swear most of them must have been plants... Or else people actually DO like acrid, acidic, death juice with a demi-tasse spoon.

We had gotten great espresso in Seaside, a smaller, dustier town in between here and Monterey, months and months ago when we visited this area for the first time. So the major breakthrough in solving our coffee problem came when we visited them again (and the glut of corporate stores in that neck of the woods- don't judge me, i needed a DVD player) So ACME coffee, the raddest coffee shop in northern CA, is owned and operated by two old rock-n-roller, muscle car types. There's something very loveable about a man with a huge grey beard, wearing a Iron Maiden shirt presenting you with the most finely crafted shot of espresso you've had in years. They also roast their own. I was charmed. When we asked about shops that might be similarly worthy and located a little closer to ye olde homestead on 14th (our house) they replied that sometimes the coffee scene was hard to guess about... But we should check out Verve (another much celebrated local roaster/shop) and a new shop, The Abbey, that used Verve exclusively as their roaster.

Long story short, (some of you are growing weary of my lengthy, far from action-packed coffee musings- I can tell) we went to the shops they recommended and while they aren't quite as awesome as our beloved new coffee haunt in Seaside- they pass! They're good! We're saved!

We also have adopted a bar called 'Red'. Dumb name, right? It should be a salon. . . or maybe a transmission repair place (Red's). But it is the only place we've found with a healthy list of Belgian style beers. And check this out you Thirty Monk afficianados, the flight includes FOUR beers and costs $9. And that's California prices! WOW. But if it weren't for Tina and Anna I would never have fully developed this troublesome addiction to these kinds of beverages in the first place. Is it too much to say to Le Baron 'Barry. Eat my shorts!?!'

Other news of note. . .it really is true. . . you can watch the ocean forever and never really get bored. Kind of along the same lines as you can watch a fire forever.

Robert went on a group ride with the illustrious MBoSC. He doesn't feel like typing just now though.

Check out my Flickr page to see new pics of our trip! I'll be posting them momentarily!

Much love,

Liz