ah AHHHHHHH!: June 2009

Here we come Mystery Mansion

My dad recommended we see this big mansion that was built very very strangely. It's an old place built back in the 1800's. It's known as the Winchester Mystery House. This house was home to the famous Winchester widow whose husband was part of the Winchester gun manufacturer legacy. Their child died and then ten years later her husband died. She felt like she was struck with bad luck. She went to a psychic that told her that all the souls of the people killed by her husband's gun manufacturing company. The psychic told her that once she finished that house that she would die. So for thirty eight years she kept building the house, adding to it mainly. She did all her own architecture work, so there are a lot of unexplained things.

Tailgating in the parking lot, classy.

What an old slot machine, too bad it didn't work, I bet the odds of winning are better on that machine than the newer ones I played.

Here's one of the only known picture of the crazy lady that lived at this mansion. It's hard to tell in the picture but she was very short. She was a little less than 5 feet tall.

Here's how short of a door she used.

Staircase to nothing?

The old lady developed arthritis and therefore had a hard time with stairs. She always needed to look at all the work being done on the house so these stairs were put in so she could get everywhere. They are called "easy risers".

The most expensive window. It would be worth near $100,000 today. It's made of crystal.

This door is on the second floor and opens outside. If you walked through it you would fall straight to the ground.

I took a test and the results were that I am a Gold Metal Winner!

Cartwheel

This candy house took 400 hours to complete.

When we got out of the parking lot we saw a bunch of PT Cruisers. This was very odd. I don't know if a PT club was visiting the mansion but it was pretty weird.

San Fran

The first thing I wanted to see in San Francisco was Alcatraz. So the crew got up bright and early so we could hit up the first boat out to the island. Turns out the tours were full. It was friday and the next available was sunday. Dang. So we set out looking for wifi as usual. We decided to hit up chinatown and see what that was all about. We stopped in a park and the play set was even chinese themed. Here's a few classic pics.

There was a crazy long line (~a block) to take a ride on this trolley.

This is a picture for my best friend jenna:

In case there is a fire in the middle of the street, San Fran has been smart enough to install a fire alarm on the sidewalk.

We had out the GPS to see what was around. Looks like a lot.

To my surprise we were in the columbia store and found this awesome manikin. He matches my shoes very well.

After chinatown we ate at a place called Golden Era. To my surprise it was a Supreme Master restaurant much like Alice and Friends. In case you have missed your Supreme Master updates here's the television station, Supreme Master TV!. On our walk back to the pier where we parked the car we stopped by a little cinema. We decided to see Recanche. I liked it a lot but Sean and Sarah HATED it. I cannot stress enough how much they hated it. Oh well I have a different taste in movies. By now our stomachs had finally made room for our next attraction, Maggie Mudd. I was stoked about this. I got a sundae with three different flavors. They were delicious. All made from coconut milk and had some type of chocolate in them. Sean and Sarah enjoyed theirs, though I do not remember what they ordered. To kill some more time we went to Barnes and Noble trying to get wifi, which you have to pay for lame. Here's some books I bought, both of which everyone should read. They are In Defense of Food and Omnivore's Dilemma. I have finished both books and really enjoyed them. In fact, I bought a copy of each and had them sent to my mother. After this little adventure the team was getting hungry. We cruised the streets at night and there was this strip of street, the Embarcadero. So we decided to eat at Johnny Rockets. We snuck in some vegan Worcester Sauce. The cook there was awesome, he was so entertaining I almost wished I could have tipped him. His name was Juan Sanchez. What a great veggie burger. We were all just craving french fries like mad. The next biggest issue we ran into was what we were to do about sleeping for the night. After driving around for quite some time we decided we'd sleep in the car. For some reason california has like no rest stops, especially along the 101. So we drove back over the golden gate and slept in the parking lot of the national monument for the golden gate. It was pretty comfortable. I was inverted in the front seat so my feet were up and my head was against the dash, using the pillows/sleeping bags we had I made a comfortable bed. But we were all woken up early in the morning by a tap tap tap on the glass by a police officer. Luckily he got a kick out of the way I was sleeping and just told us to head out of there. Off we went.

Wow that's a bridge!

Our first night in San Francisco we were arriving late so we decided to stay just north of the Golden Gate Bridge at Mt Tamalpais. We got the last campsite at the campground so we got lucky. It was a nice night. The following day we headed at early. Our first spectacle was the Golden Gate Bridge. I am going to give a shout out to my Spring Break trip when I freaked out driving over a bridge. With due respect, the bridge appeared to be narrower than my car and was a pretty tall and long bridge. But this was my face before going over the bridge.

Now the bridge:

on the bridge:

Redwoods

Sean and I took a nice hike around the campgrounds. It had a lot of climbing and was EXTREMELY humid.

Snail, on land.

Here's a dead banana slug with nature taking its course.

centipede

We were in the Redwoods exactly when the Rhododendrons were blooming. These things were bigger than the ones my parents have at their house. These picture doesn't really do justice. oh well.

In our campsite there were a number of these big bushes/ small trees. They had fruit on them. They looked like so

I was tempted to eat one but was insisted not to. Doesn't it look so tasty. Like a raspberry but yellow? Maybe they are edible in which case I would be upset that I didn't eat it. Here's our campsite.

I tried to add two photos together to get the idea the size of these trees. I'm not the best in photoshop. Oh well. That should make it more legit right?

Here's the scion chilling.

Here's a few pics from I hike I took around the campsite.

My bag is about 18 inches wide, maybe 20 but I wanted to use it for scale. This tree is huge.

This salamander was chilling in our campsite, I think I blinded him with this shot. He's like a foot long, pretty big.

Beach here we come :)

Beach findings, a starfish, it was stinky.

I don't have more pictures than this for our first beach trip. We walked on the beach and popped Kelp bubbles, it was really fun. We also saw tons and tons of crab shells all over the beach. I don't know what kills them but they are every where. We also saw our first wild sea lions and seals. It was pretty neat. They are so funny.

After that beach we hit up another beach just south of there on the 101. It was pretty cool because there was a tide pool. I got on my five fingers and started exploring.

Anemone

Hermit crab, these guys are fearless.

Fish I caught with my own bare hands.

At this beach there was a fresh water stream emptying into the ocean. The ocean was really cold, but this freshwater was freezing!

Some graffiti on the bridge we were under.

We stopped at this beach on our way to a view point. This view point is where you can see whales on the long trek but we came at the wrong time of year.

The hike down to this view point was pretty steep ascents/descents. Worth it though. We saw some bird watchers and they let us try out their binoculars to view the birds around. Here's a picture of sean making the move.

That night we had our first happy sacks!! Oh man they are the best part about camping. Well campsite camping.

The following day we headed out for our first backpacking part of the trip. This was pretty cool. Once down to the creek we could camp anywhere along the gravel bar. Before we got to the trailhead we stopped at the Lady Bird Johnson Grove. This was a little trail that had brochures with info about the redwoods and such. After that we headed to the Tall Trees trail. This trail was farther in so there would be less people. Yay!
Here is sean being a creeper;