What do you do when you're in Santa Clara? You head on over to the Winchester Mystery House.
In case you've never heard of it, Sarah Pardee married William Winchester (of the Winchester Rifle Company). Their infant daughter died before reaching a year of age, and Sarah never got over that. After her father-in-law and husband died within a few months of each other, Sarah inherited $20 million, plus 50% stock in the company, and a daily income of $1,000 per day. Which, in 1880, was a freaking boatload of money.
Sarah consulted a psychic who told her she was cursed by the spirits of all those who'd been killed by Winchester guns (the source of the family fortune). She was told to move west and to build a house for herself and the spirits. If construction on the house stopped, she would die. So, that's the back-story.
And that's why Sarah Winchester moved to San Jose with her $20 million, and began building a house, and kept building it, every day of the year for the next 38 years (construction kept going up until the day she died). Consequently, as you might expect, it's a rather large house. It was built according to her whim, so it's also an eclectic house. Architectural oddities such as stairs that lead up into the ceiling, doors that open to solid walls, as well as a second-floor door that opens outside to empty space - that one, they call the Door to Nowhere. There's secret rooms, secret passageways, and at one time, there was a tall tower that was badly damaged during the San Francisco earthquake in 1906, so it was taken down. :-(
Why all the weird features? The popular theory is that the dead ends and blind corners were to confuse the angry spirits that were after her. Sarah was a bit of a whackadoodle. But she was a whackadoodle with a lot of money. And, as Alex Trebek would be sure to tell you, that makes all the difference.
The house has some absolutely fabulous stained glass windows and doors that were purchased from Tiffany's. They are SO beautiful, leaded and stained glass and crystal. Very dazzling when the light shines through them. The maintenance for the windows is a bit onerous - the tour guide told us that every 20 years, the windows have to be reset by hand, which means removing and replacing every single little piece of glass. It takes about 3 months to reset each window. Yikes!
In the gardens out front, among other statues, there's one of a Native American which Sarah intended as a memorial to those who were killed by Winchester guns. I'm sure he stopped haunting her after he got a statue.
Unfortunately, we weren't able to tour all of the gardens, as they're busy setting up a Fright Night tour for Halloween. Looks pretty impressive, actually. Too bad we won't be in town.
(Sadly, no sightings of Sam or Dean in the Winchester Mystery house - I did look, though. The tour guide seemed puzzled when I asked if they were related.)
For the afternoon, we drove over to Santa Cruz to visit their beach Boardwalk. Stephen wanted us to ride on the old wooden rollercoaster there - the Big Dipper (you've seen it in the movie Lost Boys, among other films). Unfortunately, if we wanted to ride, we should have come on a weekend, or before Labour Day. No rides now until the weekend. Doh! That means no fair food, either. Double doh!
I don't know if I'm sad that the coaster isn't running, or if I'm a bit relieved. Sure, I'll climb up the side of a mountain using chain handholds (risking a fatal fall on a trail that can and does kill people), but I'm not so sure I want to get on a creaky wooden coaster (even though it hasn't killed anyone as far as I know). I probably would have gone on it, but now we'll never know~!
Well, no carnival barkers today, but we walked through the boarded up Boardwalk to take a looksee anyway, then went out to walk on the beach. It's a bright sunny day, and the sand is soft and very warm - hot at times! (You are still my enemy, Sand, but you were okay today.)
Out on the wharf, there are lots of restaurants (yes, mostly fish - no surprise), outfitters, and tourist souvenir shops. Underneath the wharf, there are several sea lions resting on the support struts and barking away at each other. Noisy! We also spied a jellyfish swimming below, and a few times we caught sight of dolphins bouncing through the waves.
A little further out, by the Lighthouse state beach, we watched the surfers paddling around on their boards, trying to catch a good wave. Looks fun, but it also looks like a lot of work. Not being able to swim, I think I'll skip this activity.
There are some beautiful Victorian homes in Santa Cruz, and yet I've also never seen so many "hippie"-looking people wandering about. Guys who look like they could have just stepped out of the 1960s. It's an interesting mixture.
On our way back to Santa Clara, we diverted into Mountain View to go see Google. We successfully evaded Google security and wandered around on their campus for a while. Probably only managed that because some buses were arriving at the same time for some event, so they had a lot of extra people milling around. Whatever! I have been to Google. And escaped unscathed. I may or may not have (momentarily) stolen a Google bike.
(I probably shouldn't be using a Google blog to tell you all of this.)
:-)
Back in Santa Clara, we took a quick trip over to the Santana Row shopping mall, because we have to go get our supper from Cinnabons. Mmm, cinnamon and sugar goodness. So very nutritious. Sugar = energy, right?
Tomorrow, it's off to San Francisco and Alcatraz. While we would have liked to do a night tour, those ones are all sold out until October 3. Um, no, that's too long a wait. As it was, we had to book one early this morning in order to get on a boat tomorrow.
So, it's our last night of freedom here in Santa Clara before we're off to a (hopefully) brief internment on The Rock.
In case you've never heard of it, Sarah Pardee married William Winchester (of the Winchester Rifle Company). Their infant daughter died before reaching a year of age, and Sarah never got over that. After her father-in-law and husband died within a few months of each other, Sarah inherited $20 million, plus 50% stock in the company, and a daily income of $1,000 per day. Which, in 1880, was a freaking boatload of money.
Sarah consulted a psychic who told her she was cursed by the spirits of all those who'd been killed by Winchester guns (the source of the family fortune). She was told to move west and to build a house for herself and the spirits. If construction on the house stopped, she would die. So, that's the back-story.
Why all the weird features? The popular theory is that the dead ends and blind corners were to confuse the angry spirits that were after her. Sarah was a bit of a whackadoodle. But she was a whackadoodle with a lot of money. And, as Alex Trebek would be sure to tell you, that makes all the difference.
The house has some absolutely fabulous stained glass windows and doors that were purchased from Tiffany's. They are SO beautiful, leaded and stained glass and crystal. Very dazzling when the light shines through them. The maintenance for the windows is a bit onerous - the tour guide told us that every 20 years, the windows have to be reset by hand, which means removing and replacing every single little piece of glass. It takes about 3 months to reset each window. Yikes!
In the gardens out front, among other statues, there's one of a Native American which Sarah intended as a memorial to those who were killed by Winchester guns. I'm sure he stopped haunting her after he got a statue.
Unfortunately, we weren't able to tour all of the gardens, as they're busy setting up a Fright Night tour for Halloween. Looks pretty impressive, actually. Too bad we won't be in town.
(Sadly, no sightings of Sam or Dean in the Winchester Mystery house - I did look, though. The tour guide seemed puzzled when I asked if they were related.)
For the afternoon, we drove over to Santa Cruz to visit their beach Boardwalk. Stephen wanted us to ride on the old wooden rollercoaster there - the Big Dipper (you've seen it in the movie Lost Boys, among other films). Unfortunately, if we wanted to ride, we should have come on a weekend, or before Labour Day. No rides now until the weekend. Doh! That means no fair food, either. Double doh!
I don't know if I'm sad that the coaster isn't running, or if I'm a bit relieved. Sure, I'll climb up the side of a mountain using chain handholds (risking a fatal fall on a trail that can and does kill people), but I'm not so sure I want to get on a creaky wooden coaster (even though it hasn't killed anyone as far as I know). I probably would have gone on it, but now we'll never know~!
Well, no carnival barkers today, but we walked through the boarded up Boardwalk to take a looksee anyway, then went out to walk on the beach. It's a bright sunny day, and the sand is soft and very warm - hot at times! (You are still my enemy, Sand, but you were okay today.)
A little further out, by the Lighthouse state beach, we watched the surfers paddling around on their boards, trying to catch a good wave. Looks fun, but it also looks like a lot of work. Not being able to swim, I think I'll skip this activity.
There are some beautiful Victorian homes in Santa Cruz, and yet I've also never seen so many "hippie"-looking people wandering about. Guys who look like they could have just stepped out of the 1960s. It's an interesting mixture.
 |
| Stop, thief! |
(I probably shouldn't be using a Google blog to tell you all of this.)
:-)
Back in Santa Clara, we took a quick trip over to the Santana Row shopping mall, because we have to go get our supper from Cinnabons. Mmm, cinnamon and sugar goodness. So very nutritious. Sugar = energy, right?
Tomorrow, it's off to San Francisco and Alcatraz. While we would have liked to do a night tour, those ones are all sold out until October 3. Um, no, that's too long a wait. As it was, we had to book one early this morning in order to get on a boat tomorrow.
So, it's our last night of freedom here in Santa Clara before we're off to a (hopefully) brief internment on The Rock.
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