When Steve’s parents were in town, they went on the beach train during the week and we weren’t able to go with them, so we were excited to check one more thing off of our “we should really do this at least once since we live here” list.
I really enjoyed the train. It starts in the town of Felton in the Santa Cruz Mountains and takes about 45 minutes or so to trek through the mountains down to the beach boardwalk. Trains are a very relaxing way to enjoy the scenery and a welcome change from driving everywhere we go.
Not all of the train trip is scenic, however. At one point it passes through an industrial area best known as the location of the Santa Cruz CostCo. That was the natural place to get a shot of us, since we seem to be there all the time.
When the train stopped at the boardwalk, we wandered around a bit, had a snack and went on the carousel… yet another thing on my to-do list that we had never gotten around to.
4 comments:
I remember a to do list like that when we were getting ready to leave Berkeley. It wasn't as big a deal in LA since, Long Beach really isn't that far.
BTW, what are the future plans? If you are already making plans to leave, does Steven have a job he is looking at or school? Did he have any interest in the Cal Tech demo guy position? LACC (the college where I almost got a full time job) is looking for a Lab Tech which I think he would be great at.
Steve mentioned the job opening that you're talking about. His understanding was that they prefer a PHD or PHD candidate, which he is not. Also, we're not looking to move yet. The big money in my job is during tax season, so it's worth waiting out another one of those, and we're not interested in being separated in the meantime. Steve is not pursuing grad school. I admit that I was not supportive of the idea, but he seems to have concluded on his own that it is not something he is interested in doing, at least at this point. We're within 12 months of paying off his undergrad loans and we're not looking to take on more. The tentative plan is for him to begin seriously looking at opportunities in early spring of 2009 to see what’s out there. If he can find something that seems appealing, I’ll look for positions nearby to try and keep both of our commutes down. We want to preserve at least some of our Santa Cruz quality of life. We both have 5 minute or less commutes now and work part-time but make reasonable full-time equivalent salaries. While this will likely be impossible to swing again in another location, we can at least try. The best time for me to leave my job would be in the beginning of summer. Since I am the sole employee, I would like to be considerate of my boss and leaving in the slow season would allow him ample time to hire new help before too much work descends on the office. However, if opportunities do not arise allowing for a decent quality of life in Southern California, we will stay put until they do. I’d hate to leave our relaxed life here to be miserable day-to-day just because we’d be closer to family and friends.
Yeah, we might make you miserable all on our own, without any help from a lousy job ;-) .
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