Where to start... where to start.....
ok here.
After working Friday night, I came home Saturday morning, napped, and then we were off like turd of Hurkeys. We made good time to the Bay Area, where we met up with MM's older sister, (I am going to simplify things and refer to her as Lucy. It will make it much easier, trust me). Along with Lucy, was her oldest daughter, Betty (it's a compliment, people. She loves to bake, is good at it). I had not met Betty, yet. And we haven't seen Lucy and her family for a few years (3 ish?) so it was good to catch up with them. Betty's husband is in the Navy (go Navy!), and Lucy and Betty were driving to the next duty station, able to meet us on the way. We checked into our hotel, met Betty's sweet dogs, and then took off to go have Mexican food. The dinner company was outstanding, but let me just tell you, all Carne Asada's are NOT created equal. After a nice evening, we went back to our respective rooms, to sleep, and gear up for Sunday, Halloween....
0545 rolls around Halloween morning, and my stupid brain turns on, and it won't turn off. This is something that plagues many people who work nights. I lay in (not my) bed, faced with a conundrum. Get up? and possibly disturb both MM and MG? Lay there, tossing and turning, waking up MM for sure? I got up, went to a comfortable chair, and played with my phone, and drank some hot tea. Eventually, everyone got up, we got ourselvestogether, and ventured out into Halloween.
Our first stop was this place called "
Psycho Donuts". I'm not a huge donut fan, but this place wasfun, and the donuts were good. I got a Key Lime one, and MM got one made with Nutella, which he shared with me. YUM! After Psycho donuts, we made our way over to the coast, to enjoy nearby Santa Cruz. We did nothave to be at The Winchester House until 9:30 pm. We spent a nice afternoon wandering the boardwalk, playing in the arcade, looking around at the strange and not so strange. As you can see it was a beautiful day.
After going back to the hotel for a rest, then out for dinner, it was finally time to make our way to the Winchester house. The highlight of Halloween...
We get there, and like any place that is a tourist attraction, you find yourself pretty much immediately in a gift shop. We looked around a bit, thenwandered outside to the gardens. Say anything you want about Sarah Winchester, but she has beautiful gardens and grounds surrounding her house. It being Halloween, there were quite a few others roaming around with the same purpose we had, the flash light tour of the house. There were also staff wandering around giving us candy, and trick or treat bags. Bonus! We wandered hither and yon, looking into some outbuildings, at some late blooming flowers, at our surroundings. I took a great picture of an outside sign in the night, with my flash on, so it should have shown the colors (yellow sign, reddish lettering). It came out in black and white. AND, when I downloaded my pictures into the c
amera, THAT picture? Was gone. Or I'd show you.So instead I will show you a flower...
It was finally our turn to go into the house, and on our tour. Given our flashlights, and the typical tour guide who ends every sentence with an upward inflection, away we went. I will tell you, I've come to the conclusion that any spirit that might have been wandering around was probably turned off by many of the idiots walking the house with flash lights. There were a few places we went where I felt like there was something going on, (one of the kitchens, and the Daisy bedroom), but, nothing really overtly happened. Despite that, the house is amazing! Sarah Winchester had impeccable taste in how she wanted these rooms to look. Or rather, the spirits telling her how to build the house did. The wood work, cabinetry, and tiling were beautiful. Lots of craftmanship went into this place. The floors were gorgeous. And don't even get me started on the myriad of leaded windows she had. Many of them Tiffany designed.
The house was odd, too. The staircase that goes into the ceiling, the doors leading to nowhere, windows in the floor, the tiny, narrow staircases. Those had purpose, though. Sarah Winchester was only 4'10, and she had arthritis. So the tiny steps were much easier for her to climb. Makes sense. I would really like to go tour the house during the day, to see its beauty in the light. All told, according to our tour guide, we walked a mile around the house, and saw some 110 rooms. We didn't STOP in 110 rooms, but that was ok. Many of them were unfinished, or for storage.
So, after an hour of touring the house with the idiots in our group, we were done. We purchased our few items in the gift shop, and it was time for us to take our leave of Lucy and Betty. (they were staying one more night in the area).
We made it back home at 0230 in the morning, and were very glad to find our own beds...
It was a fantastic weekend.
