Voted the Worldā€™s Best Seaside Park

Family Coincidence, 1998

My mother would visit Santa Cruz every summer as a small child, beginning in 1918. I remember her so vividly saying that “Papa” would send a car for us and we would go to Santa Cruz in the summer as Sacramento was too hot. I was also born in Sacramento. Sad to say she never liked Santa Cruz and said she would hide under the Boardwalk so no one could find her. I heard her stories many times and didn’t know that one day I would live in nearby Campbell and visit the Boardwalk as often as I could. I often imagined seeing my mother riding the Merry-Go-Round.

I’m now back in Phoenix and have visited Santa Cruz with my grandchildren and have told them their great grandmother also rode the very same Merry-Go-Round. Sometimes we just don’t plan life it happens by accident. I miss Santa Cruz very much.

Mary Lou Ryder

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