It's My Life: Lost and Found

Last week I was reminiscing about our trip to Northern California. I went back and read my blogs and was so thankful that I wrote them. There are so many details that I had already forgotten. Then it hit me that something was missing: our ride on the paddle boats and trip to Winchester Mystery House.

After we had tried to ride the paddle boats in San Francisco, but got there too late, we looked for somewhere else to take the boys to ride. We found a lake not too far away from Uncle Eric's that offered paddle boats. We didn't want to drive back to the city, plus we wanted to go the Winchester Mystery House. Derek and Grumpaw wanted to stay with Uncle Eric and do some work working so we left them behind and started out on our adventure!

When we got to the lake we rented our boat and set out onto the lake. Nana Carlys and I were very nervous about sinking, paddling out onto the lake and getting stuck or just too plain tired to get back.

The lake was large. There were fishing boats and water ski boats and we didn't want to get in the way of one of them. We ended up doing well, but we didn't venture out too far. We had fun, but when Nana and I got tired, we paddled back to the dock and bribed the boys with Popsicles from the little store.

After our water adventure we headed to the Winchester Mystery House.

Winchester Mystery House™ is an extravagant maze of Victorian craftsmanship – marvelous, baffling, and eerily eccentric, to say the least. Tour guides must warn people not to stray from the group or they could be lost for hours! Countless questions come to mind as you wander through the mansion – such as, what was Mrs. Winchester thinking when she had a staircase built that descends seven steps and then rises eleven?

Some of the architectural oddities may have practical explanations. For example, the Switchback Staircase, which has seven flights with forty four steps, rises only about nine feet, since each step is just two inches high. Mrs. Winchester arthritis was quite severe in her later years, and the stairway may have been designed to accommodate her disability.
The miles of twisting hallways are made even more intriguing by secret passageways in the walls. Mrs. Winchester traveled through her house in a roundabout fashion, supposedly to confuse any mischievous ghosts that might be following her.
This wild and fanciful description of Mrs. Winchester’s nightly prowl to the Séance Room appeared in The American Weekly in 1928, six years after her death:

“When Mrs. Winchester set out for her Séance Room, it might well have discouraged the ghost of the Indian or even of a bloodhound, to follow her. After traversing an interminable labyrinth of rooms and hallways, suddenly she would push a button, a panel would fly back and she would step quickly from one apartment into another, and unless the pursuing ghost was watchful and quick, he would lose her. Then she opened a window in that apartment and climbed out, not into the open air, but onto the top of a flight of steps that took her down one story only to meet another flight that brought her right back up to the same level again, all inside the house. This was supposed to be very discomforting to evil spirits who are said to be naturally suspicious of traps.”