We started our visit to central California by travelling through San Jose and stopping at the Winchester Mystery House. It is a large house which was constructed by a wealthy widow who inherited a portion of the Winchester fortune. The mansion has 160 rooms, but 2,000 doors which indicates how segmented and confusing the house is.
They had an on-site gun museum with racks of guns
These were the oldest guns. The top one is the most elaborate and was from the 1600-1700's, so expensive that it was owned only by royalty. The bottom one was from the 1500's and ignited the gunpowder with a lit match that was clicked down when the trigger was pulled.
Next was the highlight of our trip, when we went to the Madonna Inn. It is a hotel that was designed in the late 1950's and early 1960's so that each room is unique and eclectic. We stayed in a room called "Carin". I'll let you guess what the theme was :).
Cupid hung above the bed, holding a lighting fixture
This was my view from the bed. It's a little less "magical"
Up close, the wallpaper looked like small sequins
This shows the spiral staircase that leads up to our room on the 3rd floor. There were other rooms on the 2nd floor, but ours was the only one on the 3rd floor in this wing, so the staircase came right to our front door.
The view from one of the two balconies in the room
A view from below that same balcony
After this, we traveled onward to Pismo Beach where we visited the Monarch Butterfly Grove, downtown, and then watched the sunset over the ocean. We stayed in a fun little motel where we were literally about 30 steps from the next-door coffee shop Alisha visited before we headed to Salinas for church. Happy Anniversary!
All of the things in the upper left corner of the picture that look like dead leaves are actually clusters of Monarch butterflies, which travel hundreds (or a few thousand) miles to reach this grove of trees during winter.
