We left San Francisco on Monday morning, and not a moment too soon. It has to be the most expensive place that we have been so far - and that includes our stops in Washington, D.C. and New Orleans last year! We saw the perfect coffee cup - a cup cut in half with the words "San Francisco is so expensive that all I could afford was half a cup", but we were too broke to buy one! We should have known something was up when we found out that it was free to leave the city, but there was a $6 toll to enter it when coming across either the Oakland-Bay bridge or the Golden Gate bridge.
Yesterday, we found that Jeremiah DID know the way to San Jose! I also found out that I can use the lyrics from a great many old songs to describe parts of our trip....so, be prepared! We stopped at the Winchester Mystery House, http://winchestermysteryhouse.com/. What an incredibly beautiful and bizarre place! It was a home built (and built and built for 38 years) by Sarah Winchester, heiress to the Winchester Rifles fortune. She was a bit of an eccentric type (that would be the politically correct way to describe it), who apparently believed that she had to keep building and building, to appease the spirits of people killed by Winchester rifles. It is amazing, there is an incredibly beautiful and intricate stained glass window that will never see the light, because a wall was built right behind it. There were doors to nowhere - if you stepped through them, you might drop 12 feet into the gardens, or 8 feet into the kitchen.
Then, yes, Dad, I got the oil changed! And how lucky, we managed to be waiting right beside an army surplus store, where we found a cool German camo shirt for my army-obsessed son! From there, we headed to Pasadena. We were going to try stop at Hearst Castle, as it is between San Francisco and Los Angeles, but it was getting too late & we wouldn't have made it to Pasadena until midnight! As it was, we made it to the LA metro area after dark, & my first experience driving the LA freeways was interesting, to say the least. Let's just say that this little old lady in Pasadena was probably a terror on Colorado Boulevard - to the other drivers! And I do have to admit, it is way, way, way cheaper here than in San Fran. Our hotel for 3 nights here is less than 1/2 the price for 3 nights there, and we are able to eat for less than $30 - gotta love it!
For our first day in LA, we took a 75-minute guided walking tour of Hollywood, which was really neat. The guide explained everything to us and gave us a great deal of the history of Hollywood. We found from our tour of Alcatraz that it really makes it more meaningful to have an explanation about the hows and whys while you are touring around, so we opted for the guided tour. Actually, we picked up a citypass, which gives us access to 4 different attractions. Then, we entered the world of Madame Tussaud. http://www.madametussauds.com/hollywood/ It was spectacular! Some of the wax figures were so incredibly life-like that you just expected them to turn and say something like "Hey, you, take a hike" when you got too close to them.
As our parkade was 1/2 block away from the El Capitan Theatre where the world premiere of "Captain America" is happening this evening, I opted to get out of the area before everyone came in, so we packed it in early for tonight.
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