When I heard the news, a wave of relief so great washed over me, I felt the unex­pect­ed strain of tears, bits of mois­ture man­ag­ing to squeeze through. Until that moment, I had­n’t real­ized our fam­i­ly camp­ing trip to San­ta Cruz Red­woods RV Resort had had such an impact on me. 

I think this area, brim­ming with green, had pro­duced a pow­er­ful impact on our lit­tle fam­i­ly because we tech­ni­cal­ly live in the desert. We vis­it­ed San­ta Cruz Red­woods RV Resort from Los Ange­les where we water a lot to make it look green, but in drought years, we remem­ber where we live. The more envi­ron­men­tal­ly-con­scious of us have embraced our parched real­i­ty and turned instead to desert-scap­ing. In the sum­mer, regard­less of the size of our per­son­al water bill, the brown and crispy hills that sur­round our homes take away any delusions.

So, when we arrived at the San­ta Cruz Red­woods RV Resort, our fam­i­ly was unpre­pared for the vast­ness of the fairy tale red­wood trees that blocked the sky with their tremen­dous girth. It appeared to us that a giant farmer had plant­ed mag­ic beans in the North­ern Cal­i­for­nia soil around San­ta Cruz Coun­ty. The spell he cast gath­ered the trees into the clouds to dwell among the gods at Mount Olym­pus. The red­wood’s enor­mi­ty, sus­tained by reg­u­lar dous­ings from the near­by Pacif­ic Ocean, made my chest feel both heavy and light as I breathed in the air scrubbed clean by nature’s soldiers. 

The Red Pill Makes You Small­er and the Blue Pill Makes You Large © Rina Nehdar

So, a few weeks after our return to Los Ange­les, we heard about the dev­as­tat­ing fire that was con­sum­ing acres of these majes­tic forests. We cringed to think of the beau­ty lost. 

CZU Light­ning Fire  © Noah Berger

Although we were relieved to find the fire had spared the town of Fel­ton, in which the San­ta Cruz Red­woods RV Resort is sit­u­at­ed, McCur­ley said, “It’s heart­break­ing to think of what hap­pened to the oth­er folks.”  As of the writ­ing of this arti­cle, fire­fight­ers have con­tained 97% of the more than 86,000 his­toric acres that the beast­ly CZU Light­ning Com­plex fire has reduced to ash­es. As the area begins to recov­er, and the air returns to its bliss­ful state, fam­i­lies and friends can once again return to and enjoy the San­ta Cruz Red­woods RV Resort camp­grounds, next door to Hen­ry Cow­ell Red­woods State Park, and Cal­i­for­ni­a’s old­est state park, Big Basin Red­woods State Park, which is only a half-hour away.

What To Do At Santa Cruz Redwoods RV Resort

Rallies and Group Camping

Aged like fine wine © Rina Nehdar

For the past 8 years, the Face­book-based vin­tage RV group, Aris­to­crats Anony­mous — or AA for short — has gath­ered beneath the red­wood giants at San­ta Cruz Red­woods RV Resort to share their lives and their love of restored trav­el trail­ers. “We’re addict­ed to them,” said Toni DeCoster, for­mer retail cloth­ing exec­u­tive and cur­rent San­ta Cruz Red­woods RV Resort Ral­ly Co-Wag­on­mas­ter, as we spoke in front of the adult bev­er­age bar she had just installed into the tail end of her 1966 Aris­to­crat Land Com­man­der trailer. 

Let’s Make A Toast! © Toni DeCoster

We hap­pened to get lucky to be stay­ing at the RV resort the one week­end in the year that the group gath­ered there. We got our spot because of a last-minute can­cel­la­tion. Par­tic­i­pants had bought out all their ded­i­cat­ed spots at the camp­grounds months before.

Rows and rows of adult play­hous­es lined the cement path­way con­nect­ing the camp­sites. We arrived late Fri­day after­noon and on Sat­ur­day morn­ing, the col­lec­tors opened their cre­ations, social dis­tant style, to curi­ous campers and among them­selves. We ooohed, aaaa­hed and admired all the details and fine-tun­ing that each of these trail­ers now pos­sessed. Some offered pic­tures of the dilap­i­dat­ed con­di­tion in which they had bought them. Nor­man Rock­well could have filled the pages of The Sat­ur­day Evening Post with the results of their ded­i­ca­tion and cre­ativ­i­ty. You could see the video of their efforts here.

In the evenings, the preser­va­tion­ists gath­ered around camp­fires, like mod­ern-day cave­men, chan­nel­ing the time when tribes came togeth­er to thwart dark­ness with warm light. “The goal is to get every­one to come back to your trail­er to drink and eat,” said for­mer mort­gage con­sul­tant, Ter­ri Lynn Camp­bell, also known as TLC. Her charm cer­tain­ly drew me to her trail­er and I sat with mem­bers of their group as they caught up on their real lives over the last year. Out­side of the make-belief, they shared dur­ing this one week­end, “It’s like adults play­ing doll­house,” said one par­tic­i­pant, on this night, they caught up on all the real things too. Some good, some not so great but the cir­cle of light they found around each oth­er’s hearths extend­ed into their hearts. 

As we sat around Camp­bel­l’s camp­fire, eat­ing and drink­ing on their final night, fourth-grade teacher, Scott Chase said, “This is the kind of place where all walks of life come and inter­twine.” As Camp­bell met her goal.…

Although the group already has over 4000 mem­bers, there are ral­lies nation­wide and they always wel­come vin­tage trail­er enthusiasts.

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Campground During Covid

Dur­ing our stay, most of the man-made resort ameni­ties were closed for COVID. That’s ok. That was­n’t what we had come for but the laun­dry facil­i­ties, showers/bathrooms and com­pli­men­ta­ry wifi still worked. Their web­site does­n’t appear to be giv­ing updates so call for more info (831) 335‑8312

Clubhouse

The Club­house is a cab­in that blends right into the rus­tic envi­ron­ment. The Club­house deck over­looks the crag­gy San Loren­zo Riv­er by site #22. It has a full kitchen, a rec room and holds up to 75 peo­ple. Nor­mal­ly, you could gath­er with your crew here but it’s closed for the rest of 2020. You can pick up to-go break­fasts, though, dur­ing the weekends.

Blends Right In © Rina Nehdar

Recreation Room

While the kids sleep in your RV, walkie talkie by their beds, you can have a night out play­ing pool or chill­ing on a couch watch­ing some TV in the Rec Room inside the Club­house. Or, bring the kids and teach them geom­e­try with a few well-placed shots. There’s also a piano for some fam­i­ly sing-alongs. Or just relax out­side the club­house, nurs­ing your cool or hot bev­er­age to the sounds of the run­ning river. 

Redwood Grove Playset

Built in 2019, this new three-sto­ry play­set gives tykes ages 3–11 a place to get their steam out while you get some me time at your site. There is a bas­ket­ball court near­by for kids of all ages.

Cement paths

My boys brought skate­boards, scoot­ers and bikes and no one said any­thing about them rid­ing around the camp­grounds and, in fact, when they asked per­mis­sion (because our last camp­ground did­n’t allow skate­boards) our camp­site neigh­bor said she insist­ed they ride. Sweet.

The Details

This was our sec­ond RV trip and we appre­ci­at­ed our site allowed us to pull through, which meant we did­n’t have to “help” each oth­er back into it. RVers have a joke that Divorce Court is lined with RV campers who once direct­ed each oth­er to back their trail­ers into their camp­sites. All the camp­sites have full hook-ups to pow­er your elec­tric­i­ty, pro­vide water and drain all the stuff you don’t need. You could watch cable if you bring your own cord and there is free WiFi, no cord needed. 

Not Back­ing In

The red­wood trees around the site are enor­mous and some have hol­lowed out areas where a fire or light­ning strike may have eat­en through the mid­dle. These are most excel­lent spots to take photos.

Kids Love Pos­ing For Pic­tures In Trees © Rina Nehdar

Things to Do Beyond Santa Cruz Redwoods RV Resort

Below site #22 is a stair­way that leads down to the San Loren­zo Riv­er, across which is Hen­ry Cow­ell Red­woods State Park. Right across the riv­er is the heav­i­ly traf­ficked Pipeline Trail where we met a vari­ety of friend­ly folks as we walked along the riv­er and red­wood lined cement path. We spoke to a white-haired Eng­lish cou­ple and the wife said she walked her hus­band along this path every day since he devel­oped Alzheimer’s. Anoth­er cyclist we had met had just recov­ered from a ter­ri­ble bike acci­dent after which he had been sus­pend­ed in trac­tion for months. Even cra­zier is we learned through our con­ver­sa­tion we had rent­ed the house where he cur­rent­ly resides in Solana Beach about a decade ear­li­er! The world is a strange and won­der­ful place at times. How­ev­er, this rev­e­la­tion felt appro­pri­ate sur­round­ed by these mag­i­cal woods.

Part­ing the Riv­er © Rina Nehdar

There are tons of oth­er trails and we also explored the Red­wood Loop Trail which has a guid­ed audio tour that you should down­load before you go because once you arrive, the con­nec­tion is spot­ty. Day pass park­ing is $10 per automobile.

Bam­bi was not scared at all © Howard Nehdar

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Scotts Valley Skatepark

It’s tech­ni­cal­ly called Scotts Val­ley Sky­park and has many super fun ameni­ties like a skate park, a dog park, a pump track and huge, open fields. But the boys were only inter­est­ed in the skate park. There were rails, stairs and drops into pool-like bowls to keep them amused and wear them out. (Watch the video) I was sur­prised by how nice­ly this park was maintained.

Shred­ding © Rina Nehdar

Santa Cruz Boardwalk

Yes, most of the fun activ­i­ties at the San­ta Cruz Board­walk were also closed due to COVID but all of the arti­fi­cial food col­or­ing, fake sug­ar shops seemed to still be open. A few piz­za stands and oth­er fast food joints also retained the right to oper­ate while every­thing else, the carousel, the roller­coast­ers and the Sky Glid­er remained closed. Although we had nev­er vis­it­ed (and were dis­ap­point­ed to see so much of the board­walk still closed), it looked like it would be a great day for fam­i­ly fun. There were more rides than I imag­ined pos­si­ble in a beach­side board­walk. Near­by, the sun enticed beach lovers to sit on their social­ly dis­tanced blan­kets on the sand between the board­walk and the ocean.

Fak­ing It  © Rina Nehdar

Roaring Camp & Big Trees

When we arrived at the San­ta Cruz Board­walk, a train from Roar­ing Camp chugged its way down Beach Street, which runs par­al­lel to the board­walk, whis­tle blast­ing its pres­ence into the air like a mush­room sound cloud. Rid­ers sat social­ly dis­tanced in out­door and indoor seats on a train that orig­i­nat­ed close to our camp­grounds in Fel­ton. There are two train tours. One goes to the San­ta Cruz Board­walk, through Hen­ry Cow­ell Red­woods State Park, over a 1909 steel truss bridge and through a tun­nel before arriv­ing at the beach. The oth­er goes through the red­wood groves and into Bear Moun­tain while the con­duc­tor takes rid­ers through Roar­ing Camp his­to­ry. We did­n’t get to ride either train because they were sold out while we vis­it­ed but it looked fun! 

Into Anoth­er Time © Rina Nehdar

Mike Fox Park

About a 15-minute walk from the San­ta Cruz Board­walk we found Mike Fox Park, a slim strip of urban grassy area with a respectable skate park attract­ing all lev­els of tal­ent. The boys, of course, enjoyed get­ting to prac­tice their tricks among peo­ple who under­stood how fun some­thing like this could be.

Drop­ping In © Rina Nehdar

As we pulled out of our site at the San­ta Cruz Red­woods RV Resort to head to our next at El Cap­i­tan State Beach, we did­n’t real­ize how fleet­ing the calm could be for an area. As vis­i­tors, we appre­ci­at­ed the nov­el­ty of the enig­mat­ic land­scape, so dif­fer­ent from our own dry land. Although, the fire may have tem­porar­i­ly charred parts of San­ta Cruz, we know that growth is often gen­er­at­ed from unex­pect­ed heat. We pray for the peo­ple who have to rebuild and we look for­ward to vis­it­ing again to help by invest­ing into their econ­o­my as they do so.

Getting There

It’s about a 5 and a half-hour dri­ve from Los Ange­les to San­ta Cruz Red­woods RV Resort but if you’re pulling a trail­er add one or two hours to that. We broke up our trip when we stopped to camp at Pis­mo Beach, so it was only three hours after that. Their web­site does­n’t rec­om­mend fol­low­ing Google Map direc­tions if you’re pulling a trail­er and instead use theirs: Take US-101 north to Exit 347 and turn left onto Hwy 129. Fol­low Hwy 129 through Wat­sonville to Hwy 1. Turn right on Hwy 1 North to Hwy 17 North towards San Jose. Take the Mt. Her­man Rd. exit into Scotts Val­ley. Go 3.8 miles to Gra­ham Hill Road. Make a right on Gra­ham Hill Rd. and go 0.2 miles to High­way 9. Make a left on High­way 9 and go 1.3 miles. The entry to the park will be on the left at 4980.

Thank you to San­ta Cruz Red­woods RV Resort for host­ing our vis­it with the help from the peo­ple at GoRVing.com — a won­der­ful resource to buy or rent RVs and learn where to take them.

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