Santa Cruz - Part 1

Marianne's Ice Cream

So my little brother Stuart decided to fly in on the weekend of July 15th - the same weekend I had plans to go to LA. I was able to take the day off (last minute) so that he and I could spend all day Friday together.

For those of you who don't know, Stuart and I were only one grade apart in high school and so we have lots of great memories together from high school. We shared all of the same LDS friends, and many of them lived just over the hill at "Summit" - on the way to Santa Cruz. Thus, we would often spend our weekends and our summers at the beach, at the boardwalk, and over the hill.

So when Stuart and I were contemplating what to do on Friday, we almost immediately agreed that going to ~Santa Cruz~ would be a perfect activity. We would ride the Giant Dipper and we would eat ice cream at Marianne's

I picked Stu up in Los Gatos around 10am and we drove quickly and speedily down 17 to Santa Cruz.

And so we approached our First Stop: Marianne's Fine Ice Creams
(Yes, it was only about 10:30am and no, we had no qualms eating ice cream that early.)

So, Marianne's has somewhere around ~~50 ice cream flavors~~ available for selection. Yum! While ginger is my personal favorite, Stu and I agreed that we would each get two scoops to share so that we could try a total of 4 delightful flavors!

Here's what we chose:

Stu: Cinnamon Caramel (immediately, Stu wanted this one)

Karren: German Chocolate (because we needed more chocolate)

Consensus: Cinnamon Caramel exceeded our highest expectations. You can buy it and try it at The Milk Pail Market in Mountain View. German Chocolate though delicious was way too rich. We couldn't finish it.

Stu: Lemon Custard (Stu loves anything with custard)

Karren: Banana Almond Fudge (very similar to Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey)

Consensus: Lemon Custard was very rich, very sweet, but good. However, Banana Almond Fudge was superior.

Here is Stuart enjoying his ice cream with great satisfaction:

Here is Karren anticipating with great delight her next bite of ice cream:

And here is our Consensus: Success. Stay tuned for our next adventure.