Rain Dampens Trip to Mystery House

Friday, February 16, 2007

Page 15

AT THE SIDEBAR (Column)

Rain Dampens Trip to Mystery House

By J’AMY PACHECO

Months ago, my daughter begged for an odd book she saw at a local store. I resisted at first, concerned that the descriptions of haunted houses and other weird locations in our state would be too scary. Eventually, I relented, and my daughter learned about a place called the Winchester Mystery House.

The Victorian Mansion is located in San Jose, and was formerly (some say is currently) the home of Sarah Winchester, heiress to the empire created by the sale of Winchester guns.

Sarah Winchester moved into the house more than 100 years ago, and, on advice from her spiritual medium, kept carpenters working on it for almost four decades. There’s a lot more to this story than I have room for, but the point here is that my daughter was intrigued by the descriptions of the unusual house.

As a result, my husband and I gave her tickets for a weekend trip to San Francisco as a Christmas gift. It would be her first time on an airplane, and would include a bus tour from the city to San Jose to see Sarah’s place. She could hardly wait.

Friday morning, we boarded an airplane – the first time I’d done so in almost seven years. That flight alone made the trip worthwhile. While getting some advance information from the airline over the phone, I’d mentioned to the agent that it would be our daughter’s first flight. At the airport, she wore a shirt I’d made to commemorate her first flight.

When we got to the ticket counter at the airport, the agent took one look at her shirt, and said, “Oh, YOU’RE the first time flyer!” A flight attendant greeted us at the door of the plane, gave her some plastic Southwest Airlines wings, and made a big fuss over her. He introduced her over the PA system on our full flight, and the entire plane applauded her. When our turn came to take off, he advised her – again over the PA system – to “hang on, because we’re going to go really fast!”

I hate to fly, but Southwest Airlines managed to make the experience fun.

When we arrived in Oakland, and later, on the train that took us to San Francisco, strangers stopped to ask about her flight and congratulate her. She couldn’t have been happier.

Good thing, because from the time we arrived, it rained. Dampened by the downpour, my corduroy pants stretched in length until the hems dragged, then started sucking up water from the sidewalks. By the end of our first day in San Francisco, my pants had managed to deposit about a quart of water in each of my shoes, and still were soaked to the knees.

But I forgot all of that when we bought picnic fixings to take to our hotel, and I discovered our room had a view of Alcatraz.

The rain continued into Saturday. We spent a wonderful half-day celebrating the Festival of the Flowers in Chinatown, where we bought lucky elephants and foo dogs to guard my daughter’s classroom.

They didn’t work very well, because I ended up soaked again, the result of my backside hanging out in the pouring rain while I rode standing on a cable car. And when we returned to our hotel, we discovered our tour to San Jose had been cancelled because we were apparently the only tourists who wanted to go.

Since the alternative was to rent a car and drive through rainy, hilly San Francisco to San Jose, we reluctantly decided to skip Sarah’s house. Instead, we visited the Aquarium, the Musee Mecanique, Pier 39, the sourdough bakery, seafood restaurants, and virtually every tourist magnet on Fisherman’s Wharf.

We even visited Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum, which is probably the weirdest place north of Sarah Winchester’s house. Ironically, I read that Robert Ripley was one of the first visitors to Sarah’s house after her death, and he wrote about the bizarre building. Unfortunately, there was nothing about her house in the museum, but we did see an amazing statue of a guy who trained his snake to go up his nose and come out his mouth.

The sun finally came out Sunday, and we spent most of the day walking. We walked enough that if we’d been pointed in the right direction, we probably would have ended up at Sarah’s house anyway. But we didn’t, so that’s a trip we still have to look forward to.

It was hard to say good-bye to the City by the Bay, but I needed dry pants and socks. Besides, I’m pretty sure we’ll be going back.

I’m not sure when, but I suppose could always consult a spiritual medium. I mean, look what that did for Sarah Winchester…