Winchester Mystery House

In San Jose, we visited the Winchester Mystery House on Tuesday, June 29th. The house was purchased by the wife of the man who invented the Winchester gun. After her husband died, Mrs. Sarah Winchester was told by a fortune teller that, in order to escape the ghosts of people who had been killed by Winchester guns and to go on living, she had to keep building on her house. So, she embarked on ongoing building that lasted for the rest of her life (about 28 years). Not all of her building made sense, such as stairs to nowhere, doors that opened to long falls, and windows from one room to the next. Some of the other oddities had clear purposes, such as 1--the flights of stairs with each step raising only two inches. Mrs. Winchester, who had severe arthritis, could easily walk up these slow-rising steps and 2—the séance room where Mrs. Winchester talked to spirits; 3—and secret doors that allowed Mrs. Winchester to quickly move from one room to another to elude pursuing ghosts. To visit the Winchester House, we had to park the RV in a movie theater parking lot across the street. After we toured the house, we left our RV in the parking lot, unhooked our car, and drove to my cousin Dean’s office south of San Francisco. He then rode with us to his house in San Francisco. He and Russ have an amazing view from their new home! Since we (again) forgot to take our camera, you’ll have to take our word for it!