The Plan: My parents are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary later this year. We took this summer to spend together as a clan at the beach. The plan was to hang out together at a beach house and then visit UC Berkeley, my dad’s alma mater.

Day 1, Sunday. My wife, our kids, and my mom and dad rode up in one car and my sister and her 6 kids rode up in another car. Her husband joined us later in the week.

We stopped at Harris Ranch for a big steak lunch. It’s a major stopping point, half way between LA and SF.

On our way out of the restaurant we ran into Dave and his 2 kids. Dave is family friend. His dad and my dad were buddies at Cal back in their college days. Dave and kids were headed south to UCLA and other college tours.

We drove to Parajo Dunes, in Watsonville, which is a town along the Monterey Coast, near Santa Cruz. Watsonville is nothing to write home about; a humble agricultural town. The rental condo was a great spot along the beach. I pasted some Beauty shots from their website. It looks just like the pictures. Our unit was 4 bedrooms and 2 levels. Small kitchen but good size rooms. Plenty of room for the 14 of us. We cooked our meals and ate together.

Parajo Dunes. We stayed at Pelican Point #6.

It was a pretty private beach, with tons of birds. Flocks of seagulls, pelicans, and everything flying by. Our condo was at the end building. Beautiful view of the water from our living room. We could see the kids playing on the beach from our room.