Woke up, ate breakfast, and headed out for a couple of hours around 10 o’clock. As it was quite foggy / cloudy and there didn’t seem to be a whole lot of enthusiasm we decided to skip Coit Tower and instead go to the Musee Mecanique. The MM is a collection of turn-of-last-century through relatively modern machines found in arcades, boardwalks, etc. — nickelodeons, moving dioramas, fortune telling machines, slots, pinball, piano players, etc. It is open free to the public on Pier 45 (Fishermans Wharf area), though it is a for-profit operation — from the money to play the machines. I know we sank around $30 into them!
Entrance to Musee Mecanique
Wurlitzer, still in working condition
"Want some rye? 'course ya do!"
The kids really enjoyed some of the pinball games (they had Indy, Addams Family, Pirates of the Caribbean, and a 1968 or 1962 Olympics, at least), early video games (Centipede, Millipede, and Galaga), and the air hockey. I enjoyed two matches of air hockey against Addison, both 7-4, with him winning the first and I the second.
Michelle and I enjoyed going around and trying out most of them, at least one of each type. We tried a nickelodeon that posited the timeless question “What do belly dancers do on their time off?” SPOILER ALERT: apparently they play the ukulele in (for then) racy lingerie.
Nickelodeon for the 1906 quake, as we can't show the TOO HOT FOR BLOG belly dancer ukulele one!
We tried several moving dioramas that were rather macabre: an English execution that involved a hanging, a French execution that involved the guillotine (of course), a graveyard scene with a bum and a monster popping up from behind a tombstone, and our favorite — an opium den. This one was a doozy. The opium addicts rock back and forth and then two doors open with skeletons behind them, and also a snake appears from behind a curtain. What. the. heck? I can’t make this stuff up!
Uhhh, what am I watching? And they say modern videogames are risque
There were also moving dioramas that involved industry, like a farm, sawmill, oil rig, that sort of thing. Also the typical band-based ones — mechanical monkeys or humans or what-not playing instruments. There was one called “End of the Trail” that showed a wrecked wagon and skeletons of pioneers and their oxen strewn about, and the 25 cents just activated a fan that made the tattered remains of the wagon’s canvas covering blow as if in the breeze. Wish I could have that quarter back, but it was kinda fascinating. They had a really complex mechanical horse diorama. There was another that was hilarious called “Song of the Prairie” that had four cowboys eating near their wagon at night. For 25 cents I got to hear them… fart. Repeatedly. Best 25 cents ever! Mel Brooks eat your heart out!
Best. Game. Ever.
Brilliant and complex mechanical horse
Laughing Sal. Great, now I'll never sleep again.
After spending almost two hours there we went out onto the pier and checked out the exterior of the Liberty ship they had (the plan was to build ships faster than Nazi Germany could sink them — 2,700+ ships built with a build time of 60 days for each one) as well as the submarine SS-383, USS Pampanito. What a beautiful craft that is, they just don’t look that cool anymore. We also saw USA 76, an America’s Cup Yacht owned by Larry Ellison that raced in the 2000s.
USS Pampanito at Pier 45
USA 76 America's Cup Yacht from the 2000s
About noon we headed towards the In-and-Out hoping to try it out. Sadly it was packed, so we ended up eating at a place called Fisherman’s Pizzeria. I had meatballs in marinara and mushroom sauce with mozzarella cheese. It wasn’t that great, mainly because the meat was a bit tough and spiced oddly. Addison did enjoy his burger and Genetta her pizza, though. Michelle had rigatoni that was “alright.”
Fishermans Wharf restaurants
Headed back to the hotel and checked out, and oddly (or perhaps not so much, given the huge amount of driving we’ve done) my first thought when seeing the car emerge from valet parking was “oh, no, not this again!” Part of it was due to knowing we had to get through San Francisco first — and that Los Angeles awaited. While the traffic was pretty hairy we managed to make good time to the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose.
The Winchester Mystery House was built by Sarah Winchester, widow of the second president of the Winchester Corporation that manufactured the “gun that won the west”, the Winchester Repeating Rifle. He died at a pretty young age of tuberculosis, however, and their only daughter only lived six weeks. Distraught, Sarah Winchester turned to a Boston psychic who said she must move out West and keep building a house until she died lest the spirits of those killed by her late husband’s company’s guns find her. So she moved out to California and bought an existing eight-room house.
Front of the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California
By the time she died in 1922 she had a 160-room 24,000 square foot house, with some rooms having been remodeled or rebuilt up to six to eight times. After the 1906 quake collapsed a seven-story tower she had built (reducing the structure to its current height of four stories) she sealed off large areas of the house. Many of the staircases have very slight risers as she was arthritic. One staircase was only about 3 feet wide and took 7 complete turns just to go up 9 feet. There are a few staircases that just go straight up to a ceiling, doors that open to nasty drops up to twenty feet, windows that open to walls, a window in the floor, doors that open to walls, etc. Really kinda whacky, but not trying too hard, if you know what I mean.
That's not a "Door to Nowhere", that's a "Door to a Broken Leg"
We learned that many homes of that age used sand for insulation in the ceilings and floors. She also used a type of pressed pulp wood wallpaper which today would cost over $200 a square foot. Ouch. She was very solitary, living only with her servants and her favorite niece. She paid her servants in cash daily so she could fire them immediately should they step out of line. They tried not to, though, as she took care of their lodging and food, and the $3 per day pay with all necessities taken care of was an incredible deal at the time.
Side of the Winchester Mystery House
Before she died she had stored a bunch of stuff in a storeroom including (in today’s terms) $2.5M worth of that wallpaper as well as Tiffany windows — including one she designed custom. She was big on spider web designs and the number 13, so her window had a spider web with 13 glass beads on the strands. She also bought a (again, in today’s terms) $100K+ window of cut glass meant to refract light into rainbows all about the room but installed the window such that it could never get sunlight on it. She installed all of the columns in the house upside down, as well.
When she died the house was valued at just $5,000 (apparently they had not found the storeroom) — with practically all that valuation coming from the plumbing she had installed. A group of investors got the 160 acres and the house for $131K. That investment sure paid off given how much they charge for tickets now!
Another view of the Winchester Mystery House
I titled this blog “Playthings and children.” The playthings obviously were the items in the Musee Mecanique that we saw in the morning. What were the children? Warning, rant incoming…
The children were the idiot adults we toured with. Is it too much to expect adults to pay attention to explicit instructions? “Don’t take photos.” So, two or three were constantly whipping out their iPhones when the tour guide wasn’t watching. “Don’t touch the wallpaper, we’re trying to preserve it.” A grown-up touched it almost immediately. “Don’t stand on the fireplace floor tile, we’re trying to preserve it.” A grown woman plants her 2 inch heels right on them. Half the group was lagging behind and opening doors (in a house known to have dead falls, how stupid can one be?!) and “exploring.” One even asked if she could go to the bathroom as she didn’t know the tour was going to be so long (even though it was clearly stated to be 65 minutes). How old are these people?! Adults should know better. Blatant disregard for simple requests that preserve the site and protect the visitor just sicken me. I swear I have to do this last trip (to the desert Southwest) soon because the older I get the more I just want to be done with people altogether. Whew, rant over.
Anyhow, visited the gift shop and got our traditional magnet. Genetta got a couple of shirts as well. I was bummed that they had a Theater of Magic pinball machine but it was out of order. They too had a “bum in the graveyard” mechanical diorama like the Musee Mecanique had, as well as a fortune teller named “Zelda.” I couldn’t resist taking a picture of that. And, yes, the picture was allowed — as were all of my exterior shots of the house — just no interior ones from the tour allowed.
"I predict you will have to navigate a Water Temple"
After the gift shop we got some Icees (Coke for me, yum!) and walked around the house via the free Garden Tour. That was fun. That finished we hit the road and drove via non-highways to our hotel in San Jose. Sadly, another motel. Couldn’t turn the AC unit on because it drew in outside air and our neighbors were smoking out there, despite being told by the hotel to smoke in the designated area (far from guest rooms). People!
Ate dinner at Panera at a nearby strip mall — had wanted to avoid the chain restaurant but the BBQ destination I picked turned out to be Hawaiian BBQ and I just wasn’t in an adventurous mood. Returned back to the hotel where we watched the movie Sahara and I blogged.
Route for Tuesday, August 07, 2012