Day 5- Our last day

Day 5 originally was a free day, but since day 2 didn't go as planned we were able to reschedule the Winchester Mystery House for today.

I chose to do the Grand Estate Tour which includes the Mansion Tour and the Behind-the-Scenes Tour.

The house itself was incredible.  I can't say enough about the house.  I have always loved old architecture, so to be able to walk though such an old and curious house was so much fun for me.  The "but" coming is that the way the tour is set up is so obnoxious.  I thought the first tour guide was over the top, but the second tour guide was even worse.  It's necessary for them to be scripted, but the phony reporter talk and bad jokes really took away from the mood of the house. 

 

 

Stairs to the ceiling

This room is somewhat of a green house, but why the window in the floor???

Actually, not as strange as it looks.  That window functions as part of a 2-story skylight.  The room below wouldn't get any light otherwise.

 

This picture is taken at the very beginning of the tour.  This area is at the end of her driveway where her carriage would pull in.  She would enter through that tiny door since she was only 4'10" tall. On the other side is a stairway with a standard depth, but each stair is only 3 or 4 inches high.

After the mansion we returned the rental car and got on the plane headed home.  This was a really fun little vacation, and I'm already dreaming about another one. :) 

 Please e-mail me or comment if there are any fun places to go or things to do that you have really enjoyed or any tips or tricks for good deals. I would love some more ideas.

I used:

Travelocity.com for car/flight/hotel.  Got a great deal!

Tripadvisor.com for ideas of what to do in that area and  highly recommended restaurants. Very helpful!

Also, add the city your traveling to your groupon or citydeals accounts a few weeks before. You'll find some great deals there and ideas of things to do you may not have known about.

Day 4

Day 4 we spent in Santa Cruz.  Our first stop, The Mystery Spot.

The Mystery spot is an area in the mountains about 150 ft. in diameter that seem to defy physics. On a perfectly level surface, shown to be perfectly level with an actual level, a ball is placed, and it starts to roll off.  Not a huge deal except when the ball is sent rolling one way, and on this level surface, fights against the roll and starts rolling the opposite direction.  The Mystery spot was a fun little 45 minute tour in a beautiful mountain area with a bunch of little tricks like that.  Ben didn't fall for any of them, but I don't know....

In the picture above, the tour guide selected people from the group starting at  5'2" (on the far left) all the way up to 6' tall (far right).  The board they are standing on is perfectly level and the height difference is completely obvious.  However, when the tour guide has them reverse positions on the level board...

They almost look the same height. :)

After the Mystery Spot we headed into the city of Santa Cruz and walked through the farmer's market for a bit to kill some time until our next appointment.

The Santa Cruz Food Tour.  This was Ben's favorite part of the vacation.  It was really amazing. Brian, our tour guide, was so knowledgeable about everything.  The tour, like the name says, is a food tour, but it also incorporates a scenic walk through Santa Cruz stopping at different historical architecture and a little bit of history.  We loved it!

Brian told us that in order to be a stop on their food tour these restaurants had to be locally owned, use local ingredients, and be original or unique.

Our first food stop was the Center Street Grill.  We were served Pizza and a salad.  It was okay, but not our favorite.

The next stop was The Penny Ice Creamery.

This ice cream was so incredible that this picture was taken after the food tour was over and Ben and I went back for seconds.  I can't remember the figure exactly, but what makes this place so special is that they are one of very few ice cream places that make their own ice cream base.  I guess this is a big deal because the equipment is so expensive to do this.  Because they make their own base, Brian tells us, they can control the fat content which is important because the fat interferes with your ability to taste the flavors of the ice cream.  There is no doubt they are doing something different.  This ice cream was so good and the flavors were so unique.  The flavor we were supposed to have on the tour was a Blackberry Sweet Corn, but since they only make a small batch each morning, they had run out by the time we got there, so we had a Espresso with Praline Pecans.  On our second trip, however, Ben got a Chocolate Raspberry, which literally had spoonfuls of pureed raspberries mixed in.  I had Black Pepper Cheesecake.  Yum!

Next Stop... Buttercup Cakes

We were given a Blood Orange cupcake with Earl Grey frosting.  So Delicious!

Next Stop...The True Olive Connection.

This is a little shop that sells a variety of olive oils and balsamic vinegars. Brian brought out a bowl of strawberries and a variety of vinegars to dip them in. A chocolate, vanilla, and espresso, vinegar.  Very unique.  He also made his own soda with a bottle of Perrier' and Cherry vinegar.  Brian said that if you added vanilla vinegar it tasted like Coke.  Of course, Ben had to try it, and he agreed.  It tasted like Coke.

Next was the Surfrider Cafe.

The Surfrider Cafe is a little dive that used to be a car lot. Here we were served a variety of beers...that Ben and I substituted for a fun raspberry lemonade slush  and the most amazing slider.  This burger was incredible and apparently they make their own buns there, so any burger you order is going to have a bun on it made less than 30 minutes ago.

Our last stop was the Malabar Restaurant.  This restaurant has quite the recent history.  Many years ago an earthquake destroyed so much of the main shopping and dining area in Santa Cruz.  The city set up a bunch of temporary buildings for these displaced restaurants.  They didn't allow anyone in, except the displaced.  Well, eventually one of these restaurants was able to get back on their feet and moved to a permanent location.  That left one of these temporary buildings available.  Three different restaurants were fighting for the spot and they weren't sure who to give it to, so they settled on a cook off.  Malabar won, and to my surprise, they are a completely vegetarian restaurant.  That is how good this food is!

To be continued...

Day 2...and day 3

Day 2: I was horribly sick and we spent the whole day in the hotel room. :(

Day 3: Today we went up to San Francisco.  We left early to walk around the Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39 where I found a store just for me.

 

Then we headed to Pier 33 for the Alcatraz Tour.  It was incredible. Possibly my favorite part of the whole trip.  

 This is a view looking back at the main cell house from the recreation yard.

Some of the cells were open including the isolation cells. 

The isolation cells were located on D block, but were completely enclosed.  No bars, no windows, no light.  They weren't given beds, but only a blanket if they were lucky.  One of the inmates recorded on the audio tour said he passed the time by ripping a button off his shirt and throwing it in the air, then crawling around to look for it.

  

The cafeteria

Here is one of the cells from the famous escape attempt.  They actually scraped away the wall of the cell around the vent with a spoon swiped from the cafeteria.

Each of these cells (in the B and C block) were only 5' across and 9' deep.  I'm not sure why exactly, but if you were a difficult prisoner you were moved to D block as punishment, but the cells were bigger there. hmmm?

After Alcatraz we drove down Lombard Street, the "crookediest" street in America

Finally, we headed off to the Cliff House for dinner which once looked like this

...and now looks like this.

Isn't it heartbreaking? Still, it was a nice end to a day.  Be warned, though your definitely paying for the view.  The food is expensive and mediocre at best.

To be continued...again.

Happy Anniversary!!! 10 years!!!!

Ben and I decided to plan a little trip for our 10 year anniversary.  There has been so much going on lately (I'll try to post a little of that soon) that it kept getting pushed off and pushed off and ended up being a little last minute vacation that I planned (by choice) completely on my own.  He had no idea what we were doing or where we were going until the moment we were doing it.

The night before our adventure was to begin I told him to pack a bag for 4 days and we needed to get up at 4 am.  Apparently I have a reputation for fibbing about surprises to lead the recipient astray, so Ben assumed the 4 am timeline was a lie and didn't end up going to bed until 12:00 am. :)

The next morning at the crack of dawn I told him to grab his suitcase, I set the GPS, and told him to drive.

We drove to Park City and pulled up into the Best Western hotel parking lot.  We just sat there.  Ben is looking at me like I'm crazy.  I just smiled and we waited. Soon a truck pulls up with a trailer carrying the obvious basket to a hot air balloon and Ben looks at me...nervous. I'm so excited, and after it sinks in what we're doing Ben gets over his nerves and is loving every minute of it.  We follow Will (the Austrian pilot) and Dave (the chaser car) out to a secluded parking lot to set up the balloon.  Will says he likes to get us involved in the setting up and breaking down, which means less work for him and more fun for us.  It was really hands on and we loved it.

The ride was so smooth. It was barely noticeable that we were leaving the ground. The highest we got was 3,200 ft and only went about 10 miles an hour when the winds picked up.  Will talked to us about how he gauges the wind patterns, but admits it's always a mystery as to where you'll land.  There were 6 other balloons flying with us that day which added to the view.

And when it was over we had a toast to another safe landing.

After a few hours having lunch and shopping in park city we headed off to the airport.  Ben had an idea we were flying somewhere, but it wasn't until we printed the boarding passes that he knew where we were going.

 San Jose, California.... Okay, but what are we going to do there???

After unpacking in our hotel in San Jose we headed out for dinner. We were referred to an Ethiopian restaurant. We were looking for an adventure, and it was. We had never had Ethiopian food before and it was crazy.  It was served "family style" on one big platter with a strange "bread" that was as large as the plate and can only be described as having the texture of a shoe insole.  It was served cold and you used it more as your silverware really.   You would rip off a piece and use it to scoop up your meal which was similar to a curry. Neither of us really cared for it, but it was a fun experience anyway.

To be continued...