John and I are always looking for fun things to do on the weekends since I’m cooped up at home for work during the week, so I was super excited when one of his friends gave us the fantastic idea to go berry picking.

There are a few pick-your-own fruit places in the bay area, but we decided on one that’s somewhere in between Santa Cruz and Half Moon Bay. It advertised ollalieberries, which are a complicated cross between various combinations of raspberries and blackberries. I managed to get carsick on top of already being sick (forgot the ginger and it’s 1.5 hours along a windy road) but berry picking was a unique (hot, sweaty, dusty, fun) experience.

We picked $3.00 worth of ollalieberries and blackberries, which ended up being maybe 1.5 pints worth? Plenty for us. I wanted some tayberries too, but we didn’t end up finding them. I’m not sure why, but there were hardly any signs to direct people where to go, which thoroughly irritated my inner organizational freak.

We also stopped by to pick strawberries, but since they aren’t quite in season we just checked out the field and then bought some.

Afterwards we went to downtown Santa Cruz, and I’m not going to lie, that was easily my favorite part of the day. Shade! Shops! Food! Ice cream! We drove by an amazing beach filled with kite surfers along the way, which made me homesick for San Diego. Visiting the beach doesn’t seem like much of a thing in the bay area, so I’m a huge fan of Santa Cruz.

Sometimes the pictures that the iPhone takes amaze me. I didn’t have my big camera so I only had my phone, and while I got some decent pictures, I’m definitely taking a better camera next time. It really was that blue.