Via a roundabout route (many of the coastal roads had suffered earthquake damage), they went down to Santa Cruz to help in the cleanup. The media had focused on San Francisco and Oakland. What had happened in Santa Cruz was not seen by many. Caydance and Griff were not prepared for the grim battleground that had been downtown Santa Cruz. Forty buildings had been demolished or severely damaged. There were bulldozers everywhere. An entire store in the downtown Pacific Garden Mall had collapsed. Many people were still without power. The beach was littered with immense fallen trees and the remnants of houses. Waves had been thirty feet high. The wharf had been split in half. Like a sentry in a war-torn town, on the boardwalk, the wooden roller coaster known as "Giant Dipper" was still standing. They worked on beach cleanup for most of the day, listened to the stories of those who worked beside them.

They were quiet on the way home to Griff's beach house in a miraculously undamaged pocket of beach North of Santa Cruz. The beer they had brought with them was warm. They were making sandwiches with canned tuna fish when Bob and Tommy arrived. "Griffie, we took some of your beer home and stored it in Tommy's refrigerator. But we don't drink this kind of beer." Bob handed Griff a 6-pack of cold Marin County Microbrew.