The trip we took over a week ago:

I woke up early, ’cause Mama was chiding a cat. O_o We got all our stuff, fed the animals, and were “ready” at the designated time, 7:00. But then, of course, other little things happened so we climbed in the car about 7:20. And Daddy used the remote door opener on the trunk. At 7:00 in the morning. XD

McDonald’s, saw an old Japanese lady taking a walk over the bridge on the way there, then half an hour later as we left, she came walking back. And she looked even more frail than Grandma. O.o Got carsick, ’cause my stomach was full, and I was sitting in the backseat.

Daddy missed the exit for Apple Farm Restaurant and Inn, heh. Mama and Daddy talked to their friend who used to work with them, we had lunch, I ate more than Mickey O.o and we took off again. Slept most of the way up there, and slept more going into San Jose.

We got to the Winchester House around 4:00, Mama lost the coupon that would have saved us $10 from the $190-something tickets, spent a good 10 minutes or so searching the van. We never found it. After the tickets we looked a bit through the gift shop, and I found a book on ghosts in California. >)

Took the first tour, umm, the one of the mansion itself, can’t remember much of it, as my short term memory was not at work, but if you were to ask me things about it I’d remember. Umm … the thing I found most interesting … probably the 1906 earthquake and all of the resulting events. Poor front rooms. Poor 7th story.

We got to see 115 rooms or so, and walked a little over a mile. Heh. In the beginning, I was so confused. I kept thinking we were on the first floor, but there were so many stairs we went up and down, I got disoriented. The highest I ever felt we were was the second story. ^_^;; Except for that room where we saw the chimney that just reached the ceiling.

After that we looked at the gift shop more, Daddy bought the ghost book and a booklet thing on the house. I was looking at this book, with pictures of 1920s wedding fashions. $10, figured it was too much just for one website layout. haha.

Looked at old stuff, umm, tools that looked like they came from Jichan :b and this model of the house made from candy. There was also a Charlie Chaplin movie thing. I guess they’re called nickelodeons? Well, I watched it. And got sick from all the flipping. :D I have no idea what the story was about though. Something to do with chefs, and cooking, and cakes … Then we looked at the Winchester rifles and stuff, but were interrupted in the end.

We took the behind-the-scenes tour, can’t remember much of that either. ^_^;; Sarah’s middle name was Lockwood. *grins* Like Annie Lockwood. hehe. She farmed prunes, and um, a few other things. O_O Didn’t know that. Before the electrical system was put in, there was an extremely disgusting gas lighting system. The end result was this polluted water thick as paint that a servant had to clean out and reset the system. >_< Saw the second, unfinished ball room. And a seed storage building shaped like a key.

The basement creeped me out. Don’t know why. Not really scary, just kinda … how old is this house? Normal paranoia stuff. But the guy said it’s the safest place to be in an earthquake. Hmm. Because of its floating foundation. :D I wish we had that. But the house has to be anchored to the ground. So we get cracks in an earthquake. ¬_¬

After that tour we looked around the front yard and tossed coins into three of the fountains. heehee. Not sure how much money that was … $2? And it allll goes to charity. ^_^

We drove a bit and found a motel, really cheap, but nice. About $89 for one night, we got two full-sized beds and a small chair (Daddy slept on the floor ^_^;), a really nice bathroom, a refrigerator and freezer that needed defrosting badly, and cable. There was also this really weird lamp that could be adjusted to different levels of brightness, but would turn off after a half hour ’cause it got too hot. O.o Umm, ate food from Jack in the Box (our Jack in the Box doesn’t have a chicken salad T-T so unfair) and watched Austin Powers. The first one, I think. The next day we got our free breakfasts (those were really good too o.o), then left.

I forget what time we got to San Fransisco. But the first thing we did, after figuring out where we were and where we wanted to go, and where to park, was to get Hidek a sweatshirt, ’cause he didn’t bring one. ¬_¬ Well, Mama asked why I didn’t bring pants, I said she didn’t tell me, she just told me to bring a jacket/sweatshirt.

We took a tour of the Pampanito, which was cool, ’cause guys who served on subs were there to answer questions we had. :) Twice, the sub rooolled and swaayed, when Mama told Mickey it wouldn’t rock. :b The second time, we were in the front, where more (disarmed) torpedoes were held, and those started moving on their rails. O_O

After that, we went to the cannery (is that what it’s called?), looked through a couple shops, including this one pottery/clay sculpture one, which was really interesting, then left to go to this clothing store for pants. ^.^; After I was warmed up, we went to … uhh … that place that had to do with chocolate. With the Ghiradelli’s sign … or something like that. I got hungry, so we went to this place that had crêpes. :D I had a crêpe! It was a butter and sugar one. Mmm, good. I also had a hot cocoa that I burned my tongue with. -_- Mama drank half of it, and had half my crêpe, ’cause I couldn’t finish it. ^_^;

Then we just walked around, looking at stuff. Like we hadn’t been doing that before, trying to find something to do? :b We walked along this tiny little beach thing in the bay, continued down that street, then ended up in Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum. XD It was really fun and interesting though. I wanna go to all the other ones now. :9

After that we got back to the car, paid $25 for 3–4 hours of parking >_< and drove over the Golden Gate Bridge. ^_^ We went to two train shops for Mickey, but he didn’t see anything. Hidek did, though; it was a, uh, … Master Grade Gundam model. It’s green. *climbs up on his desk to read the box* It’s Zaku II. *rolleyes*

Then we ate dinner at an In-N-Out. Ooh, good stuff. ^_^ This lady Mama talked to said she just came from a Giants game, and that’s why there was all this traffic. After that we went back over the bridge and tried to get out. x,x We decided not to, but ended up going over the Bay Bridge anyway, to get away from traffic, which, laughably, we ended up in again. *sigh* So after that we drove home. Daddy drove since we started, and Mommy drove from about 8:00 to 10:00, but didn’t want to go through the grape vine (still don’t know where that is), so Daddy drove home. We got home at midnight. Interesting experience, driving home in 5 hours at 80 mph, with less and less cars and more and more big rumbling semis the later it got. *nods head* I hope I never have to drive that way.