The Winchester Mystery Mansion in San Jose was our destination for today so we ate a quick breakfast and jumped into Charlotte for the one hour drive to San Jose from our camp spot in Morgan Hill. Traffic was pretty good all the way there as long as you were going our way. The traffic going the other way on 101 was stopped so all the rubbernecks could fully scrutinize the woe of the motorists who had wrecked while driving south.
The Garmin took us right to the attraction and we even found a parking spot in the lot. We shuffled over to the ticket office where we were relieved of $34 a head to go into the facility. We only had a 30 minute wait before our tour started so we took advantage of their restrooms during the wait. At our age, passing a working restroom is downright stupid.
Eventually, an announcement came over the public address system that our tour was starting and our height-challenged, acne-scarred tour guide would meet us at the appropriate place to start our journey. The Winchester Mansion was a continuous construction project undertaken by a widow of one off the Winchester Firearms family who believed that as long as construction continued on the house, she would continue. She was partially correct; work stopped upon her death.
The Winchester woman was not formally trained in architecture, instead getting her inspiration from psychics. The result is an enormous wood structure of around 4 stories with a whole bunch of little, tiny rooms constructed seemingly without purpose. The zitty guide indicated there are more than 200 rooms, 10,000 windows, more staircases (some leading only to the ceiling) than needed, a couple hundred skylights and 3 elevators. Since the design was psychic-induced, there is no coherent layout of rooms and getting from one room to an adjacent room might require a passage through many hallways, stairs, cubbyholes and substandard-sized doors. Very little of the mansion has finishes or wall coverings. The absolutely gorgeous front door, entry foyer and spectacular living room had only been used by 3 people before being closed off by the owner due to some psychic weirdness. Many kitchens can be found within the house, maybe because nobody could find their way to the outside and were obliged to eat or die.
The exterior of the structure is quite striking but the interior is a testament to madness. The place also has some gardens, a restaurant and a gift shop apparently specializing in Chinese goods for a high price. I spotted barbecue lighters shaped like miniature M-14 rifles, coasters with the word “Winchester” misspelled, a large selection of ugly branded clothing and pink thermal coffee cups. The mansion itself is pretty amazing but the tours could be much better. Our tour guide told us about a bunch of items in the house that, according to her, were the most interesting thing in the structure. None of the stuff she mentioned was all that interesting.
We left after a couple hours and headed to a Chinese restaurant called either “May Flower” or “Mayflower” depending on whether you were reading the exterior sign or the menu. Peggy got sesame chicken and I got cashew chicken and they were pretty good. The place was a bit pricey but there was nothing wrong with the food. Strangely, the sesame chicken was not delivered to the table until after Peggy and I had finished the soup, the combo rice and the cashew chicken. The waiter kept coming by the table saying “one minute – sesame chicken” but not actually delivering it until we got the check. Very inscrutable.
We left Mayflower or May Flower and drove over CA-17 to Santa Cruz. From Santa Cruz we picked up CA-1 to Watsonville (probably the only portion of CA-1 which is not scenic) before again picking up CA-152 back to our place at Morgan Hill TT.