Wednesday: Driving up north

We started our trip to San Francisco with no plans other than visiting a few places. Our drive was uneventful. We started up the Pacific Coast Highway from South/Central LA up through Malibu and the beach cities for about 2 hours before we went inland for a faster route. Once we got to San Jose, we decided to call it a night and asked Mandy to show us the closest hotel to our first destination: Winchester House. She took us to a fantastic shopping area with Gucci and other pricey shops. We ended up asking her for another hotel because we thought that area would be a little too pricey for some travelers looking for a bed!

The next morning we took a tour through the Winchester Mystery House. It is believed to have been cursed because the owners' baby died within 6 weeks due to ill health and Mr. Winchester died a few years later of tuberculosis. Mrs. Winchester believed the house was haunted by the ghosts of the men that died from the rifles the family made during the Civil War. To distract the evil spirits, Mrs. Winchester installed doors that led to walls and stairs that went up to the ceiling. The tour went through the entire house of 1 mile. It was ... interesting ... to say the least. I'll have pictures posted later once we get home (we are waiting for our return flight to Colorado Springs right now as I type).

The last part of the day was our business portion for the San Francisco area. Fletch is a huge fan of Mesa Boogie amps, so we took a tour of the factory in Petaluma (south of San Fran). Fletch was in amp heaven!!! He was able to find a good deal on a Mesa Boogie thingamajingy on Craig's List the night before, so we picked up the item on our way back to San Fran after the tour. Our last two business stops were Guitar Center stores in San Francisco (where we scored great street parking right in front of the store!) and San Jose. Of course we ended our business trip with a business dinner ... at Chevy's.

We enjoyed the previous night's stay at the hotel so much, we decided to stay another night to make it easier on ourselves (packing our stuff and the car to finding another hotel in San Fran ... more expensive ... and unpacking/packing all over again was getting annoying).

Our plane is about ready to load. I will blog our tour of Alcatraz and our VERY eventful drive back to San Diego once we get home. All I have to say about our trip home is check out the latimes.com today to see front page of a 15 truck pile-up that caused 5 to catch on fire causing us a 3 hour delay in arriving in San Diego!!! Pictures tomorrow after I rest up (I slept 3 hours last night!!!)