Cashing in Our Christmas Gift

One of our family Christmas gifts this year was tickets to the Winchester Mystery House.

We went down to San Jose to have lunch at The Cheesecake Factory, and then drove over to the house for our tour time.

The tour takes you into quite a few different rooms,

110 of the 160,

and they tell you the story of Sarah Winchester and why the house is considered haunted by some.

The architecture is fascinating.

Some of the rooms are really cool--I want some sort of greenhouse someday.

And others are just so incredibly weird.

It was really fun seeing it decorated for Christmas.

There were some very beautiful ornaments.

And beautiful features built into the house.

It really is a work of art.

I loved all the stained glass.

Quite the roofline!

Having a house built over 36 years, constantly being expanded, leads to a lot of interesting things.

We really loved seeing everything.

And trying to imagine living in a house like this.

And as weird as parts of it are, there are also so many lovely aspects.

It must have been quite the house.

This is one of my favorite rooms.

All the wood paneling is beautiful.

So cozy.

We had some time to explore the grounds after our house tour.

Great gardens, too.

This house is so incredibly unique.

Our experience gifts are always the best.

This one was so fun for all of us. We went home and watched Winchester (with our one kid who is willing to watch semi-scary movies. And it did have some scary parts!) I'm sure there's still so much to explore in this story.

 

Day 41: We Made It!

Woke up surrounded by a beautiful desert landscape. This is definitely more what I pictured when we set out on this van trip, but even with all the parking lots and side streets, I'm so glad that we went where we did. 

But I'm also looking forward to more western U.S. exploring where we'll be pulling off on dirt and gravel roads to find random camping spots.

We made our last breakfast, and then hit the road and crossed into CA just a little while later.

And our only stop for the day was a lunch stop at the Cesar Chavez National Monument. We made lunch and then spent an hour or so learning about his history and contributions to Mexican American and farm worker's rights.

There was a beautiful little garden area around his home.

And Peanut did one last Jr. Ranger badge. He learned a lot this trip through these.

And then, we just drove home. We were ready to get there and get ready for Christmas. Bug had already beat us back to Livermore by a few days. He stayed with a friend so our friend who was staying in our house while we were gone could stay a little longer, but he came back home just a little before we did and we had a great reunion.

All our new ornaments we collected! This was quite the year for building our collection. We had a bunch from the UK, too.

And my Trader Joe's haul. When you aren't home for 6 weeks, and it's Christmas time, it takes a lot of groceries to restock. We ran to Costco, too, so this was just a small part of it.

These two started reading the Christmas books as soon as we opened the box. I think Peanut is pretty happy to be home.

And reuniting with our animals was also a highlight. They were well cared for, but I think Poppy appreciated getting to do "baby" again. Now she's just waiting for her Bean to come home who is her favorite! (We're excited for her to come home, too, of course!)

Day 35: The Best of Arkansas

I don't know if it's actually the BEST of Arkansas, but it's all I really know of Arkansas and we did really enjoy these National Park sites.

Our first stop was around lunch time and we visited the Little Rock high school. There are several civil rights sites in the south and I was really hoping to visit one of them, but most have really limited hours and were not open in the middle of the week. I was glad that the visitor's center for this one is. We learned about everything that happened here when they tried to de-segregate the schools.

And the school is so beautiful, it's not hard to imagine that people would feel like it was a little unfair to be excluded from attending here just because of their skin color. It's still a functioning high school, so you can't take tours of the school itself, but we walked over to see it after the visitor's center. 

Peanut was still not feeling well, so he stayed in the van for this one and just got a glimpse of the school when we drove by after lunch.

Then, we got to drive west through some pretty country to get to the next spot--

Hot Springs NP. This park was completely surprising--so different than any other park we've visited.

It's right in the town of Hot Springs and involves a lot of man-made history.

We found a spot to park on one of the side roads, and then consulted with Peanut, who in the end decided he just didn't feel good enough to go with us. We left him with a couple of movies downloaded and a phone to call us if he needed anything.

This was the most we were able to get him to do--get out of the car to see the steam coming from a vent in the road, proving there are hot springs in the area.

Daddy-o and I walked over to the main street, where there are old buildings that used to house the various hot spring treatment centers and spas. A couple are still functioning in their original cause, but most have been repurposed.

We took a tour of the Fordyce Bathhouse which is the park visitor center.

We learned about the various treatment options available in the first half of the 20th century, during the heyday of water treatments.

It's the largest of all the bath houses along that road and has a lot of different amenities.

The gym looked great.

Some of the rooms felt more clinical and honestly a little creepy.

One of the treatments involved going for increasingly challenging hikes on the paths on the hill behind Bathhouse Row.

We took a walk on the promenade and enjoyed the view of the downtown.

There are so many spots where the hot springs come to the surface. They've capped them all so they don't get contaminated.

Back to the van, to check on Peanut and to go explore a little of the more natural part of the park.

Daddy-o and I went for a short hike through the woods on the West Mountain.

It was so beautiful--still some fall colors, and lovely fall weather.

And then, it was time to take care of some chores. We drove to a laundry mat where I did 3 loads of laundry while Daddy-o and Peanut made dinner. And then, right as we got done, we got to watch an arrest made right in front of the laundry mat. Exciting.

And we stopped by one of the natural spring public fountains to fill our water tank.

We had originally planned to stay in the campground near the park, but it was still early enough, and we had a long drive ahead of us the next day, so we decided to drive a couple of hours while Peanut slept to make it a little better the next day. With him not feeling well, we just keep hoping that he will feel better the next day, so we want to create more time for when he does.