Bonny Doon, California

Bonny Doon, California is an unincorporated community,northwest of Santa Cruz, California. It was founded in the 1850s as a logging camp. John Burns, a Scotsman living in Santa Cruz, named Bonny Doon after a line in Robert Burns' (no relation) song "The Banks O' Doon". ("Ye banks and braes o'bonnie Doon.."). Bonny Doon is located in Santa Cruz County. Bonny Doon has no "city center" or shops, but features several wineries, a church, two fire stations, Bonny Doon Elementary School and the private-use Bonny Doon Village Airport. A nude beach of the same name is nearby. Evidence of 2600 years of occupation by Native Americans has been found in the area. The area is on a slope with higher elevations in Redwood forest, maritime chaparral, and lower elevations descending toward the coastal zone, which is occupied by grasslands. There are ocean views from parts of the area on days when fog is not present. The University of California, Santa Cruz is a short drive down Empire Grade, and Bonny Doon is popular with residents both who work there and those who work from home and telecommute in various genres of computing. Even though it's an outlying area, DSL and Cable Modem and TV service are available, however, Mobile Phone service is very limited. Some southern California residents have compared Bonny Doon with the Topanga area, a community in the hills near Malibu, some 300 miles to the south. Robert A. Heinlein, noted science fiction author, along with his wife Virginia, was a resident from 1965 until just before his death in 1988, in a house he designed and built himself. (Heinlein's unique circular house can be seen on Google Maps on the east side of Bonny Doon Road just north of where Shake Mill Road dead-ends into Bonny Doon Road from the west ( [http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&ll=37.058812,-122.158399&spn=0.002003,0.003648&t=h&z=18&om=1 Heinlein House] ).

The road to Bonny Doon from State Route 1 crosses an enclosed conveyor belt, whose purpose is not obvious. In fact, the conveyor carries limestone from a quarry in the mountains three miles east, to the Cemex cement plant at Davenport. This cement plant supplied cement for latter stages of the Panama Canal, and other large projects since its founding in 1906.

The ZIP Code is 95060 and the community is inside area code 831.

External links

* [http://www.scruzwiki.org Santa Cruz Wiki - The People's Guide to Santa Cruz County, California.]
* [http://www.BonnyDoonFarm.com Home of Bonny Doon Lavender]
* [http://www.bonny-doon.info http://www.bonny-doon.info]
* [http://www.bonnydoon.got.net Rural Bonny Doon Association]
* [http://www.bonnydoon.santacruz.k12.ca.us Bonny Doon Elementary School Website]
* [http://home.comcast.net/~pqboom/ Boomeria]
* [http://www.anatometal.com/weather/bdweather.htm Bonny Doon Weather Page]