California Trip {Day 5}

We checked out of the Dolce Hayes Mansion and started our "Geek" tour. We mapped things out on the GPS. Our first stop was 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, CA.


For those readers who are not familiar with this address, this is the Apple headquarters.

Maybe this image is more familiar.

It was amusing to people watch here. We were behind a metro bus that stopped and let off dozens of Apple employees. They were mostly young, casually dressed (jeans or khakis and button down shirts) and nearly everyone was wearing a backpack. The Apple campus was HUGE! Apple has a Company Store open to the public. Chris bought a polo style shirt there. We also picked up some little things for the kids, too. While in the store, Chris played around with an IPad on display and found a little place for us to eat breakfast. So that's where we went next.


Breakfast was at Bobbi's Coffee Shop. I had a delicious veggie omelet. Yum!


Our next stop on our Geek tour, was 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA.

In case you aren't familiar with that address, it is the headquarters of Google.
The Google headquarters (Googleplex) also encompass several buildings. There were yellow bicycles with baskets outside the buildings for employee use in getting from building to building.


The Computer History Museum was next. This is the largest computer history museum in the country.

This is a PDP-1 computer. It is significant because of the the control panel on the lower right that students built for playing a video game. The concept of video games didn't exist before this, so for video game fans out there, this was a crucial moment in history.


An original Pong video game machine.

This is a Cray Super Computer.


This is one of the first personal IMB computers. Chris had one like this in his dorm room at college.


This is an Apple 1 computer. You had to assemble the computer yourself and it did not come with a case. This one is signed by Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak.


The first Nintendo video game system. We received one as a wedding present in 1991 from my sister.

Then it was on to 367 Addison Ave. in Palo Alto, CA to take a look at this garage.

In case you're wondering why we would stop to look at someone's garage, it is the Hewlet Packard Garage - the birthplace of Silicon Valley.


Now finished with our Geek Tour, we made our way back to San Francisco, our final destination.


We checked into our hotel, the Warwick San Francisco, then went walking and exploring.

In all the excitement of our geek tour, we forgot to eat lunch! So we stopped at Annabell's Bar & Bistro for an early dinner. It was happy hour and all drinks & appetizers were on sale. So we feasted on a some bacon wrapped prawns, sweet potato fries, and an arugula pesto pizza.


We went to bed early, we were tired from our geeky adventures. I wish I could say we slept well, but we are not used to sleeping in downtown areas. There were whistles blowing (hailing taxis), horns honking, and lots of loud, drunk folks in the streets of downtown San Francisco.

California Trip {Day 4}

We left Paso Robles on Wednesday morning. We stopped for donuts and coffee at a little shop that I forgot to photograph! Oh well....my coffee wasn't that great.

We also wanted to ship some more wine that we had purchased rather than dealing with it. Our hotel in Paso Robles recommended a company called Safe Haven that will come to your hotel and pick up your wine and ship it to you. We found out about it at check out, so we decided to just go directly to them with our wine. We had 4 bottles of wine and 1 bottle of olive oil. We decided to stop at Albertson's to pick up a 6th bottle. We figured that if we were sending 5 bottles already, they would probably have to use a box that would hold 6 anyway.

Now with the wine out of the way, it was time to head north to our next destination, San Jose. I can't tell you how many times I would sing "Do you know the way to San Jose" to my husband. I think he started tuning me out after a while. I was no Dionne Warwick!

We took a little detour on our way to San Jose to have lunch in Monterey at the Fisherman's Wharf.


The boats at Monterey.

We ate lunch at an Italian Seafood place called Isabella's. The chef at the restaurant, Tene Shake has a cooking tv show called Coastal Cooking with Tene Shake. He was there and asked us how our food was. He was dressed awfully nice though, I don't think he prepared my clam chowder or my fish & chips. I guess that's what happens to chefs when they become successful.

Here is Chris at our table which overlooked the bay.

These noisy sea lions could be heard all through our lunch.

A picture of us using Chris' arm as a tri-pod.

Sometime mid afternoon, we arrived at our next hotel, The Dolce Hayes Mansion. Our room was ready, so we checked in and got settled.


The 2 main attractions we wanted to see in San Jose were the Winchester Mystery House and the Computer History Museum. Since it was already mid to late afternoon, we were afraid that we would be out of luck for the rest of the day, but lo and behold, the Winchester Mystery House was open late!


For those unfamiliar with the Winchester Mystery House, it was built by Sarah Winchester, daughter to the Winchester Gun fortune. She was a believer in ghosts & spirits and built the house because the spirits told her to do so. The house was under construction 7 days a week for 38 years. There are lots of quirky features to the house such as stairs that lead to nowhere and doors that open to nothing. There are 160 rooms in the house.
We took a tour of the house and the behind the scenes tour. The behind the scenes tour took us in the basement and other areas not on the regular tour. It was our lucky night, we were the only ones on both tours, so we had our own private tours.

Here's Chris waiting between tours.

And me

And a picture of both of us taken by our private tour guide.

A different view of the house.

The front door that was supposedly only used 3 times.

One more view

It was about 8 after we finished up at the Winchester Mystery house. We really didn't feel like going to another restaurant. So we stopped at a grocery and picked up some cheese, hummus, crackers, & fruit and ate back at the hotel while watching Get Him to the Greek on HBO.