An Escape to Santa Cruz...

Wanting to explore a beach town that was new to us, we headed to the coast with our older son and his wife.

Being good tourists, we headed directly to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.

This family-operated Boardwalk has been entertaining guests by the beach since 1907. One of the last of the classic seaside amusement parks in the United States, the Boardwalk is considered one of the best seaside amusement parks in the world.

It truly has something for everyone. I'm a sucker for photo opportunities that involve cut-outs to pose behind!

I really loved the opportunity walk through the Boardwalk's history. Eighteen interpretive signs highlight points of interest and fun facts about the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and Coconut Grove. So dang awesome!

To learn even more we strolled through the Historium, located on the second floor of Neptune's Kingdom (previously known as The Plunge). This incredible exhibit included photographs from the Boardwalk's first 100 years, antique arcade games and interesting memorabilia. I loved this.

We even learned about the original, oxygen-fueled, pre-motorcycle, Harley Davidson. This man was "without a doubt one of the greatest athletes that ever lived," marveled The Milwaukee Journal when the native of St. Paul, Minn., appeared there in early 1915. The newspaper article said the 44-year-old Davidson "has broke more records and entered more events in the different branches of sport than any other athlete in the world today" – including "running, swimming, track, boxing, baseball, bicycle racing, lacrosse, wrestling, (and) ice and roller skating." Here, in Santa Cruz, they recognized him as "The roller skating champion of the world." Way cool (especially since I love roller skating".

I was intrigued by this little fact. During the 1930s, tourists from the San Francisco Bay Area could take the Southern Pacific Railroad's Sun Tan Special right to the Boardwalk. Except for the years 1941 to 1947, trains ran from San Jose, Oakland, and San Francisco and also connected Santa Cruz to Watsonville and Los Angeles. In 1932 alone, the train delivered as many as thirty-five hundred people each Sunday to Santa Cruz, where train cars were greeted with a blast of brass from the Beach Band. Wow, right?