In an effort to stimulate business downtown and make Pacific Avenue more navigable, the Downtown Commission voted this morning to proceed with a plan that would turn the majority of Pacific Avenue into a two-way street.
News
Summer Soaking in the Santa Cruz Mountains
There’s nothing quite like swimming in the redwoods. It’s more liberating than swimming in a normal pool and less unsettling than treading water in the open ocean. There are no Great Whites in the San Lorenzo River, and the biggest risks are getting poison oak on your way there or maybe stubbing your toe. And even at its chilliest, the water is never as cold as the ocean is around these parts.
A Day at De Laveaga Disc Golf Course
It’s Sunday afternoon, and Asa Maestas, a Soquel High School junior, is standing on a concrete tee at De Laveaga Disc Golf Course’s fourth hole teaching a novice—me—how to play. Maestas instructs me to throw “nip to nip,” demonstrating as he pulls his disc horizontally across his chest and extends it out toward our target, a metal basket that appears to be several light years away.
Scaling Sandstone in the Santa Cruz Mountains
We gather in the parking lot at Castle Rock State Park, six people ranging in age from mid-twenties to mid-forties, here to learn the art and science of rock climbing courtesy Santa Cruz–based Treks and Tracks. Before we set off on the 20-minute hike to the site, our guide Daniel Laggner, who has a shock of curly sun-streaked hair and forearms like Popeye’s, warns us about what may be the greatest actual threat we face all day: poison oak. “Leaves of three, let it be,” he instructs us. Got it.
Sweet Swanton Strawberries at the Farmers Market
These fragrant, succulent strawberries from Swanton Berry Farms are just some of the many indicators of warmer weather and lengthening growing conditions. Our farmers markets are now loaded with strawberries, asparagus—delicious pencil-thin asparagus this week from Hog Farms—young red onions with long slender leaves, broccolini, tiny zucchinis and of course fava beans, the ultimate herald of springtime.
Gas Leak Causes MAH Evacuation
A leak in a 2-inch gas line in between the Museum of Art and History and the Jedzebel clothing store forced the Santa Cruz Fire Department to evacuate a number of businesses on Tuesday.
Stand Up Paddle Paradise
Although I’ve lived in Santa Cruz for the last five years, unless it’s a fogless, 80-plus–degree day, it’s unlikely you’ll find me in the water. I’ll dive in on particularly hot summer days if the waves are looking friendly, but I’m not a strong swimmer. I’m the kind who watches the surfers out on Steamer Lane and marvels longingly at their athleticism, but surfing has always looked too physically (and mentally) challenging for me. So I content myself with being a sun-soaking landlubber.
Drawn to Santa Cruz, A Cancer Patient Rethinks Life
Less than three years ago, Jennifer Heskett Yamaguchi laid on an examination table in Tucson and watched the monitor as a urologist sent a camera into her bladder. What she saw turned her world upside down: more than 20 cancerous tumors—too many to even count—taking over the right side of her bladder.
First-time Surfer Would Rather Float
My two most vivid memories of the ocean: being bashed in the surf at 7, an intimate introduction as sand scraped half the flesh from my left shoulder. Six years later an undertow dragged me out. Kicking and screaming for my life, I eventually dragged myself back in.
In Aftermath of Collins Murder, New Scrutiny on Homeless
When the Shelter Project’s Paul Brindel heard about the proposed changes for homeless services in the aftermath of the murder of 38-year-old Shannon Collins, one concern echoed through his head. “I hope that as a result of this horrible crime, homeless people will not find it so much harder to find legal, affordable shelter,” says Brindel, the Community Action Board program director who will be retiring this year after 30 years of service.
