Mariposa to San Jose to Carmel!

Dennis outside the fruit drying room at Winchester.

The beautiful front view of Winchester House.

We passed acres and acres of pistachio groves!

Dennis finally got a good picture of the roadrunner that was by our house rental.

Wow! What a day we've had! Busy, busy but really great all the same! We left our house on Indian Peak at about 8:30am and headed to the nearest car wash. Yes, car wash. Driving that black car on that dirt road had it looking awful and Dennis couldn't stand it. There was a man there from Australia (!) and he said he wanted to see how our car made it through it before he took his. It was an automatic car wash and it did fine. No more dirt ball vehicle. Yay. We headed for San Jose to see the Winchester House. The temperature in Mariposa was headed into the 100's so we left just in time. San Jose wasn't much better, the 90's. The house was fabulous, of course, with a tour that took about 1.5 miles to walk and you saw about 150 rooms. No kidding. Sarah Winchester was nuts but very creative! There was a gift shop and little things to do, a snack shop,etc. which we made good use of. A coke, however, was about 6.00 ! But you got unlimited refills! We left San Jose and headed to the coast to Carmel. LOTS of bumper to bumper traffic but we put the radio on easy listening to help us stay calm. haha We checked into our lovely hotel after much driving in this crazy, twisty town. It looks like it was built by gnomes and is very, very hilly everywhere! Lots of expensive cars and shops! Reminds me alot of Venice. We ate at an Italian restaurant and Dennis has passed out in a chicken pizza delirium beside me on the bed. Long day and long one tomorrow to get to Los Angeles!