Okay, I tried the camping thing. I bought a new sleeping bag as my old mummy bag was suppressing me. I bought the new tent so we could have space. And I even got a new self-inflating Thermarest from Coast Mountain sports before we left. The thermarest betrayed me horribly. As soon as we opened it to let it do its self-inflating thing, it broke. We literally stood there as the pieces of the seal broke off. So, I slept on a thin piece of foam that was deflating all night as I slept on it. Oh, did I say slept. Nope, didn’t sleep. Not a wink.

Now those of you who have slept with me (platonically of course) know that I can actually be pretty annoyingly chipper in the morning. If I get sleep. No sleep, no chipper. I was a very cranky zombie type girl. Very bad news.

So, we cut our losses and decided to head onto Santa Cruz (also cutting two hours off the eight-hour drive we had planned for the next day as we started to head home).

Now my travelling companion needs breakfast on a set schedule, so she bravely took zombie girl into public. We had what would turn out to be the worst service of the trip at the Big Sur Lodge Restaurant. Food was not worth the price and the lack of service was ridiculous.

We had already planned to do Carmel and Monterey even if we stayed in Big Sur that extra night, so we popped into those two towns on the way up route 1.

Carmel was adorable. Obviously a very arty, rich person’s town, but adorable nonetheless. We snacked on fresh scones at the Tuck Box, a gingerbread style cottage in the downtown area.

We also managed to get in a little bit of shopping which soothed my inner beastie. I even found a cell phone holder (have been looking for weeks).

We hoped Monterey would be as sweet, but as my pal said, “it was just like the developed areas of Puerto Vallarta.” So, not really good. So much for experiencing the Cannery Row of Steinbeck. We didn’t stay.

A little while later we arrived in Santa Cruz - location for one of my favourite all time movies - Lost Boys. I had some vampire hunting on the Boardwalk planned, but it was pretty damn hot still so we took shelter in the shaded streets of the downtown shopping district on Pacific after finally finding somewhere to stay. Bit of a dodgey motel since we hadn’t planned to be there, but close to the boardwalk.

Santa Cruz is another college town so there were plenty of cute boutiques - both hippie and trendster. One of the coolest was the Om Gallery where we both picked up new purses (yes, I know I don’t need more purses). Om is a fair trade business that works with family industries in Asia. I was tempted to bring home one of their beautiful lamps, but grabbed a catalogue instead.

Dinner was at the highly recommended El Palomar. The food was great - taquitos, margaritas and fajitas - some of my favourite foods. Service was disappointing - kind of indifferent.

We were full as hell, so we walked off our dinner by heading down the Santa Cruz Wharf a short distance. Great views of the beach and boardwalk rides. After we dropped our bags back at the motel, we went off on our vampire hunting. Okay, not sure anyone was doing that but me, but we did go to the Boardwalk which was a zoo (we found out later that ride tickets are half price on Mondays). We got on the Skyglider for a view of the whole scene.

We could actually hear the screams from the rollercoaster from our hotel rooms and as we lay on our beds later that night, we could see the lights of the rides. Pretty cool if you like amusement parks as much as I do.

No vampires sighted. Not even one goth.