Friday Frustrations

Traveling in the US is GRUELING!!

We left the house yesterday at 4:30 a.m. and arrived in our hotel in San Francisco at 3:00 p.m. That's 10 1/2 hours traveling! We get to Europe faster than that!! Technically, it was 1:00 p.m. SF time, but still it was 10 1/2 hours!

We only had one snafu in LA that delayed us about 30 minutes. That was just enough to put us on edge for being late to our first tour---the Winchester House. We Lyfted from our hotel---30 minutes and 40 bucks! I had been there about 30 years ago, but Butch never had.

 The house is gorgeous---on the outside. Inside---not so much. We weren't allowed to take photos inside. Sarah Winchester inherited the equivalent of 2 billion dollars today---from her husband who invented the Winchester rifle in New Haven, Connecticut. She moved to San Jose on the advice of her spiritualist to build this house. It was under construction with workers working 24/7 for 30 years. She believed the noise warded off evil spirits.

There are 160 rooms. We saw 101 on our tour Many were not much bigger than a large walk in closet. Most had no furniture, so it was hard to visualize what it looked like during it's prime. The rooms are weird---all with windows that were either over a wall or looked through to the next room---they didn't get sunlight. There were 100 fireplaces. The list goes on and on. There was a staircase  that just went to the ceiling---not to a room.

The grounds and gardens were beautiful. Considering the house is on a busy street, inside the gates, it was peaceful and calm.

 Can you imagine all the roof leaks there must be with all of these rooflines?

 The door to nowhere. Many doors opened up to just a wall behind. I don't know what her reasoning was about that. I think it had something to do with confusing the spirits.

 The palm trees are gorgeous!

After our tour, we did a virtual geo-cache on the grounds before heading back to the hotel. The traffic! Cost us $47.00 to get back. Both rides included a 25% discount offer I had, so it would have been more! Still, we agreed it was worth it to see this most unusual house.

We went to an early dinner---5:30---at the Fish Market. The prices were crazy good! This crab and shrimp Louie salad was $16.00. It was chuck full of seafood---I've already eaten some before I remembered to take the picture. We started with crab and artichoke dip. Butch got the crab cakes. Can you say "crab overload?" Never! We couldn't finish everything, but it was so good. And the sour dough bread...!!! The whole meal was $55.00!! We haven't had a meal that cheap in Nashville since---well, ever. Okay, Mexican, but that doesn't hold a candle to seafood!

We were back at the hotel by 6:30 and in bed by 8:30. In our defense, that was 10:30 our time after being up since 3:30!!! We were tired!!

Today we're off to Alcatraz, Muir Woods and Sausilito.

Oh, and it's Ireland all over again. It's 59 degrees, but sooooo cold! It's the wind! I had on my coat and scarf all day. I tried to stand in the sun as much as possible. But still....