My Summer - Part One with Chorizo at the Coast

Now that fall is here and things have calmed down a little bit on the weekends I have time to post some pictures of a couple of fun trips I took this summer.

In August I took a weekend trip with my favorite daughter, April and my favorite grand-puppy, Chorizo. Yes...she named her puppy Chorizo which is the name of a much loved Mexican Sausage usually fried up with Huevos (Eggs) or Papas (Potatoes). I guess it's a fitting name as Chorizo is pretty spicy!

Chorizo loves car rides! What dog doesn't right? But don't worry, we don't let her drive! (Be sure to click on any of the following photos to enlarge.)

First we went to Elephant Seal Beach. We've gone there before and I posted about it on March 28, 2010 and you can view that post HERE which has more details of where and what Elephant Seal Beach is. I will tell you that it is located at Piedras Blancas in the southern range of Big Sur, near San Simeon and I love it there! Where else can you go to see nature in all it's glory for free? Here's some pictures you can enjoy for free as well!


A view of the coastline. The weather was beautiful and as is usual for that area, it would alternate between being overcast and being sunny.

Here's a picture of the Elephant Seals basking in the sun. Ahhhh, this is the life! Except for all that sand and having to haul your body around on those little flippers.

From there we headed to Avila Beach to a little fruit stand that April wanted to show me. She knows where all the best spots are! I loved this place. It was very busy, lots of people but you were free to roam around and see the animals and people watch. I'd love to go again!

This fruit stand is known as the Avila Valley Barn and you can go HERE to read more about the history of the fruit stand, get directions, and view tons more pictures. They're working on an online store where you can order custom mixed Cake and Pancakes mixes and their Jam, Jellies, Preserves and Honey! Here's a view of where we parked. Is this a beautiful parking lot or what? These are Zinnias. I've grown Zinnia's before but they never grew like these! Mine were short, scrawny little plants, these are gorgeous!

This is the view heading into the stand itself where they sell fresh flowers. Isn't this a beautiful display?

Here's a closeup of those beautiful red flowers. I want to say they're daisies, but I'm not sure. Doesn't it look like I photo-shopped this picture to get those beautiful colors? Nope, that's just Mother Nature's doing! I love the aluminum buckets they use to display them.

And a closeup of those tulips! I wish I had bought some now that I'm looking at them!

That night we had dinner at the Great American Fish Company in Morro Bay. I didn't take any pictures because the flash in my camera is "no bueno" at night and that's when you need the flash right? But here's a picture from their website and you can click HERE to read more about them and see their menu. April and I both had the Bacon wrapped Filet Mignon and it was so juicy and tender you could cut it with your fork! We also had an excellent bottle of Champagne from a local winery, Tobin James Cellars. I say we...but I mean me. April sipped at her glass and I drank the rest of it. Yum...it was wonderful!

The next day we headed to the Nipomo Swap Meet. It had been years since we had been there and it has changed so much! When we used to go it was filled with vendors selling Arts and Crafts and second hand and antique merchandise. Now it's just like a giant parking lot filled with 99cent stores. Now I love 99cent stores, but that wasn't what I wanted to see, so that was a bit of a let down.

We headed back to find someplace to have a nice lunch. Someplace that would allow us to have Chorizo with us. So that meant outdoor dining and April knew just the place. I tell you this girl of mine knows all the best places and a weekend with her is filled with fun and adventure! We went to Zorros Cafe and Cantina in Shell Beach where we enjoyed Mimosa's made with the same Champagne we had the night before. They had the best Chips and Salsa and if you ever get to that area you need to go try it! Doesn't Chorizo look like such a proper and well-behaved little puppy just sitting there. She's adorable!

After a wonderful lunch April figured she still hadn't tired me out enough (trust me, she had) and she insisted we drive out to Montana de Oro. Montana de Oro translates to Mountain of Gold and is named that due to the golden wildflowers that bloom in Spring. We love it there, it's so beautiful and peaceful and pretty secluded so you don't have a ton of people there.

Chorizo loves wading in the water. Here she is with my daughter April enjoying herself.

And just in case the waves carry her away and she doesn't know how to swim (I tell April all dogs know how to swim) April insists on her wearing a little doggie life jacket. Isn't she cute!

And as we ride off into the sunset back to our little casas (homes), we say "Adios Montana de Oro...until next time."

The Winchester Mystery House

In March I accompanied my sister to a Conference for the California Association of Public Cemeteries. The Conference was held in Sacramento and you can read more about the actual conference and costume party they held HERE. But today I want to share with you a side trip my sister and I made to a place we have longed to go to for years! The Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California.

If you've ever driven anywhere North in California on Highway 99 or I-5 or Highway 1 or 101 you will see signs for the Winchester Mystery House. Every time we would see one of these signs we would say how much we've always wanted to go there, yet we never had.

San Jose is about 120 miles from Sacramento, so it wasn't just a side trip, we actually took the whole last day with the thought in mind that we were going to make this trek and finally get this out of our system.

The Winchester Mystery House is a mansion that belonged to Sarah Winchester, who was the wife of William Winchester who was the son of Oliver Fisher Winchester who was the manufacturer of the Winchester repeating rifle. Mrs. Winchester was married to William in 1862 and they lived in Connecticut. The couple had one daughter named Annie. Annie unfortunately died in 1866 of a mysterious childhood disease and William died in 1881 of tuberculosis, leaving Sarah alone and in a deep depression.

Legend has it that Sarah sought the guidance of a spiritualist who told her that the reasons for the death of her loved ones and for her being left alone was because of all the spirits that had been killed with the rifles manufactured by the Winchester family. She convinced Sarah that she was next, but that she might be able to appease the spirits by moving west and building a house for them and if the house were to be continuously built then the spirits would leave her alone and she might even have eternal life.

So Mrs. Winchester moved to California and in 1884 she purchased a lot with an unfinished farmhouse about three miles west of San Jose. Building then began and non-stop for the next 38 years! Sarah did not hire an architect to build this house, she was her own architect and that is perhaps why this house has 160 rooms, 2,000 doors, 10,000 windows, 47 stairways, 47 fireplaces, 13 bathrooms, and 6 kitchens! She had doors that led into ceilings and doors that opened out into nothing. In the very top picture of this mosaic you can see double doors. If you were to open them from the other side and not pay attention you would drop down into nothing!

The tour that we took included the inside of the house, but not the gardens, which was a shame because the gardens were beautiful and I wish we could have gotten photos of them. We did walk around the back of the house after the tour and took photos of the back part which had some pretty gardens, but nothing like what we could see out the windows during the tour in the front of the house.

We had a good time touring the house and hearing more about the history of it. It's out of my system now and while I would never pay to see this again, it was worth it the first time just to know that we did it! Now we just need to visit with World's Largest Ball of Twine and we'll be done!

Just kidding...it's a memory my sister and I will always have and I thank her so much for taking me and I thank her husband for staying home so I could go!

Have you ever visited the Winchester Mystery House? If you would like to go and need information on pricing and directions, or just want to read more about it, please click HERE.

And I'm joining Mary at Little Red House for Mosaic Monday.