Nobody talks about the insidious sand fleas that inhabit the beaches of Santa Cruz. They are so aggressive that they stand a chance of trashing the entire tourism industry of this community if anyone lets the cat out of the bag. I believe they are on par with the French mesquito, if you imagine that! one can not relax on the sand without be swarmed by these pesky buggers. Yesterday mama was completely covered with towels from head to toe and even then, they still managed to get underneath them and annoy the living crap out of her. We are on day number three of our beach vacation and are on hotel number two. We originally set up camp at the holiday inn express but their dirty, cold and postage stamp size pool set daddy off in a fury so after one night there, we packed up, gave them the finger and are now taking up residence at a hotel across the street from the beach. A far better choice because a) we can hump back whale watch from our balcony, b) there's a delicious ice cream place literally below our suite, c) we can watch the saucy volleyball players do their thing in the sand, d) the sunsets are spectacular from the deck, e) the restaurant across the street offers happy hour on lemon drops from 3-6 daily, f) we can get to the beach in a jiff, g) we can watch the seals aggressively attack one another on a dock attached to the pier, h) our suite has 2 Murphy beds which might be the coolest concept ever, I) there is wi-fi for daddy which means he can dupe his clients into believing he's sitting in his office working a 15 hour day when really, he's only putting in a few hours of work a day. We've decided that this is a great vacation spot for us because it's just an hour from home and yet it seems like a world away. The weather has been perfect since we arrived....about 80 during the day. However, we're fixin' for some rain come tomorrow. That's not good for Sophie and I since we have caught our third cold this month and Sophie has a cough that sounds like she's going to toss up a lung. It's going to be a very long winter.