Sunday March 31st - Day Ten

Sunday was our last full day of our trip. We needed to drive from San Simeon back north to San Francisco; our flight back was Monday morning.  We drove to Pinnacles National Monument to see the sights there.  Pinnacles is located the Gabilan Mountains, east of central California's Salinas Valley. This is the valley area south of San Jose (i.e. Silicon Valley). Much of it is agricultural and the remainder is not, making it completely deserted (other than for places like Pinnacles). While not a large park, we loved our visit here and would definitely recommend it to anyone who passes through this area.  We entered from the east and hiked from the Bear Gulch day use area to the Bear Gulch Reservoir. The Bear Gulch Talus Caves made this hike a must see.  The caves vary from fully enclosed to cracks and crevices between the pinnacles rock formations.  The hike requires flashlights and some hands and knees crawling.  The girls loved it. It’s not hard though; you only really encounter about 15 minutes of that part, but it’s definitely the most fun. The top at the reservoir rewards you with wonderful views.  When we were done with Pinnacles, we headed over to the Winchester House in San Jose. This house was built by Sarah Winchester, the widow of William Winchester. He experienced a series of deaths of her only child, husband and father in law in quick secession. She felt that her family was cursed, and sought out spiritualists to determine what she should do. A Boston medium, believed to be a psychic, allegedly told her that the Winchester family was cursed by the spirits of all the people who had been killed by the Winchester rifle, and she should move west to build a house for herself and the spirits. The medium is claimed to have told Sarah that if construction on the house ever stopped, she would join her husband and infant daughter. She had 20 million from the family fortune (Winchester Rifles), so there was 38 years straight of 24x7 construction on the house. It’s huge. It has 160 rooms and 47 fireplaces, but that’s just part if it, the house contains many features that were utilized to trap or confuse spirits. There are doors that are small or lead nowhere and windows that look into other parts of the house. We took the inside and outside tours, which filled up the remainder of our afternoon. We drove north to the San Francisco airport and our hotel for the evening. We flew home to Milwaukee the next morning.

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