Big Basin is beautiful. Tons of redwoods. I remember the ride down to Santa Cruz as pretty uneventful, although I think actually riding through Santa Cruz wasn't too pleasant.

But what I remember most from this day was the awful campsite we ended up at. Dan and I both use Tom Stienstra's California Camping, which rates and describes campsites. I've used it over the years and even bought an updated copy a few years ago. Anyway, Sunset State Beach campsite is rated a '9'. Tom, this is place is a dump. That's what some of the pictures below are trying to show (but they actually do it a service--it was terrible). It was like an overcrowded parking lot. Very few trees. You've got a great view of dilapitated agricultural buildings, though!

We did hike over this huge sandune to an 'ok' beach. There was a large congregation of seagulls, which some of the photos below are trying to unsuccessfully capture.

Besides raiding the agriculture junkyard for firewood, we also amused ourselves by trying to photograph a local owl.