When we were little kids, my folks used to pry us out of bed before dawn on summer weekends, bundle us in the back of the Buick Estate Wagon, and drive us over the winding hazard that is California's Highway 17. I don't remember anything about the transition from bed to car, but I can imagine sitting in the back seat, watching a blur of trees go by. I can picture Santa's Village, a ramshackle theme park at the town of Scott's Valley where the road straightened out. There was a dinosaur park on the opposite side of the road - a giant made out of concrete peered through the trees and across four lanes into the elves workshop. I wonder if the elves thought they were hallucinating. We never stopped at either place, heading straight for the state park on the beach in Santa Cruz. Weather on the Pacific Coast is unpredictable at best in summer time. There's a strip of cold, wet, fog that likes...
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