The House of Winchester

Due to travel and issues with the internet, I have not been able to get around to this week's topic (which was actually meant to be an adventure topic, but Angela decided to turn it into this week's topic :p).

Every picture I've ever seen of the Mystery House has it nicely surrounded by farmland.  This picture clearly demonstrates how this is not the case:  see the movie theater sign on one side, the busy street behind the sign, and the housing on the other side.  The House of Winchester is now in a sea of city, looking oddly out of place, and all the more like a tourist trap rather than a historical site.

We weren't really allowed to take pictures of the inside of the house, but I got some neat shots of the outside.  It's hard to tell how big the house really is from these, though, because it looks much smaller than one might think.  The inside is indeed a labyrinth, but it seemed much more straight forward than they wanted us to believe.  They said if you straggled behind on the tour, you would get very lost and wouldn't be able to find your way out.  Yet, I noticed a lot of doubling back on the tour, which led me to believe it would be very easy to find your way out as long as you knew what you were looking for.  Mrs. Winchester and her guests needed to be able to find thier way around the house after all.

There is in fact a "Door to Nowhere"

Teresa and I couldn't help bending the rules a little...technically this is outside the house

Angela and John being cute in the garden

The statue built to appease the Native American spirits who died from Winchester guns

I would definitely recommend taking both parts of the tour to anyone who wants to go.  You only see parts of the house on either tour, but it's only $5 more to see both and as much of the house as they open to the public.  We didn't see any ghosts, but apparently others have, plus you can spend as much time wandering through what remains of the estate (outside of the house) as you'd like for free.

Flight from Insanity

I am getting to be as bad as Angela...although I blame Angela for the lateness of this week's topic posts.  It is entirely her fault for inviting me to come out to her crazy part of the country and then taking up all my time with doing cool fun things.

The trip to California was relatively uneventful.  Apparently we brought the winds from the midwest with us, though, because we hit a ton of turbulance as we flew.  The plane couldn't even land straight because of the winds.  There was also a marked difference from flying out of my neck of the woods and into California.  My airport was dirty, full of irritable people, and absolutely packed.  Angela's airport was clean, empty, and full of people all happy to be in California.

I really don't have anything interesting to discuss about the flight.  It wasn't interesting at all.  In fact, it was so boring that it put me to sleep a few times.

However, upon my arrival, Angela and John took me out for sushi. It was the best sushi I have EVER HAD IN MY LIFE OH MY GOD.  And then they told me later that it wasn't even "the best sushi place" just the "most affordable" and in fact it isn't even all that good in comparison.  Clearly I am missing out on something special here.

Tomorrow we're going on an adventure to the Winchester Mystery House.  I'll probably have an update to my adventure log shortly thereafter...with pictures.