A few years ago, I spent a summer in Santa Cruz. I look back on those full months and the sleepy, strange town where I helped children build bots, learn computer animation, walk through the Redwoods, assume the banana slug posture, and smile.

This time of year I always spend thinking deeply about what might be next and what the past twelve months have taught me; returning to this place, I walked the beach, wandered the empty boardwalk, and watched as the gulls scattered.

Looking down, I saw succulents continuing their individual growing cycles;

looking up, purple roses crowned the walk down West Cliff Drive.

And then I headed over to Santa Cruz’s new coworking place, NextSpace, to see Margaret Rosas of Quiddities (a Knight News Challenge winner for a great Drupal/public radio project) and meet the SC crew, including the 12 seconds team (Saul and Beach):

I heard plans for sitcom scripts (Margaret’s on the right):

and felt the energy of a collaborative tech space that leads to creative work like 12 seconds and UserVoice.

Revving the silver Mustang, I headed first to Kelly’s Bakery for aioli and my next space: a fried artichoke cart somewhere off of CA-1,

(and a vanilla macaron)

and the Fried Artichoke Quest ended near Castroville off an exit only found heading north (I was originally heading south):

Bliss.

A few hours later, I joined Santa Cruz Twitterers upstairs at the Red Room and left even more impressed with the assembling talent in this town.

Before diving into tech work of my own, I spooned the wonderfully subversive Marianne’s Alice B. Toklas Fudge Brownie ice cream as the fireplace danced in a cozy b&b on Green Street.

The next morning, I followed CA-1 into the sunrise, thinking about where I’ll be the next time I see Santa Cruz…

Related posts:

1. my friend, the bear and the magical real
2. a summer cabin sabbatical
3. spinning in the sun

1. Lyndsay Cabildo:
   January 23rd, 2009 at 11:09 am

   I was trying to read all your post but I got distracted by the food photos…lol…now, I’m hungry..I’ll be back. :D

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Posted by Kristen Taylor on Wednesday, December 24th, 2008, 3:06 pm * Filed in Design, Food, Photography, Technology, Travel, Video. * Tags: coworking, cruz, kristen, kthread, next, santa, space, taylor. Follow responses through the RSS 2.0 feed. Leave a response, or trackback from your own site.