gategrrl

The five days (3 full days) in the Santa Cruz/Montery area went well. We did go see the Aquarium--and, nice as it was, and as cool as portions of it are, I think as a family we're up to here with our fill of aquariums. We've now been to every major aquarium on the East and West Coast. I did get some good pictures, though. My Canon SX20 kicks ass.

And after taking a break on Wednesday to do...very little, with no sightseeing, on Thursday we drove up to San Jose and toured through the Winchester House. I hadn't realized the Mansion part of the tour was over a mile long! In a HOUSE! My mom said she was getting weird, not-good vibes walking through the house. With every turn, every fact mentioned by the tour-guide (who was actually nice outside of her "Done This a Million Times" tour-guide rehearsed voice) she got more creeped out by how beyond wackadoo Mrs. Winchester was. But no matter how odd the woman was, she (or her builders, not sure which) were really into conservation and the most up-to-date methods of building and recycling. That was the most incredible part, aside from her abandoning the front part of her expensive house totally after the Earthquake of 1916 (I think it was?).

After hearing her family history, I got huge "Hey, wait a minute!" moments. Stephen King borrowed shamelessly from the Winchester family history and the house itself for his TV series "Rose Red". I think he's honest about it, so it doesn't bother me that much. But it did make me expect to find more, stranger rooms than were actually in the house. I have decided that at some point, I'm going to go back to the Winchester House and 'borrow' some of the art glass windows that are just sitting around collecting dust when they COULD be installed in my modest 1950s ranch house, which needs new windows anyway. ;-) Seriously, some beautiful glass is in that house. And carvings. OMG. I wish I had that kind of money.

Other than those two sites, we stayed at the KOA where the kids bounced on a large "moon bounce pillow" thing set in a large sand box (really incredible). And there was a playground there was was pretty good looking, but they weren't into that so much.

The drive was a bitch. Long, about 5.5 hours, not including the expensive food stop-over at the Ihop on the I-5. Little did we know there were a whole bunch of fast food places just up the road a short stretch on the drive north. On the drive south, the kids traded off, and I had Tall Boy in the back with my mother sitting shot-gun. I think she had an okay time. We didn't get to do the 17 mile drive, but I was constantly tired out from all the driving. On the way up, the Guy did something to his back (he sat on a hard, fat wallet for six hours in the car) and was in a lot of lower back pain for most of the trip.

Ah, yes. If you're EVER in the Watsonville area up there, go eat at the Bittersweet Bistro! It's got the BEST FOOD. Dinner can be a little expensive, but it's awesome. We ate there on my birthday (no cake, though), and my family embarrassed me by singing happy birthday. There was another birthday girl there, too. We also went there for lunch one day (Wednesday).

Yeah. Trips can be fun, but holy moly, they're a LOT of work. I need a vacation.