Santa Cruz and San Jose

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This was a bank holiday weekend in California - Cesar Chavez, a farm worker turned labor leader and civil rights activist who achieved nationwide support for the farm workers movement. California is one of the states to celebrate his birthday with a bank holiday, government and state institutions choosing to celebrate the nearest Friday to his birthday, this year 25 March. I am in agreement with this, I was born on a Friday and therefore think my birthday should always be on a Friday. Friday's child is loving and giving, a much better motto to carry through life than the one Jess's Wii gave me - telling me in no uncertain terms that I am overweight and unstable.
We chose to celebrate Cesar's birthday with a trip to the coast, taking in Santa Cruz and San Jose. Because my driving licence is yet to arrive, we let me navigate. Why go the direct scenic route when you can go out of your way through hideously ugly wind power farms. Highway 580 is littered with wind power mills, not the picturesque wooden mills beloved of Holland and Camberwick Green, but the aesthetically aggressive types beloved of politicians with a keen eye on a directorship for their post-politics employment. It was a very windy day, California still recovering from the storms of the last week. However of the hundreds of mills blotting the landscape, few were turning. Why? Does California not need electricity this week .... or have they just proved to be less than functional? Wrong kind of wind? I may want environmentally friendly power, but I also want pretty, environmentally friendly power.
Eventually we reached Half Moon Bay, albeit on a slightly circular route. Half Moon Bay is a very picturesque town on Route 1 to the south of San Francisco. The outlying farms and farm shops suggest that there is a focus on organic production, particularly pumpkins and flowers. The geography apparently causes an unusually shaped wave – I failed to notice. In keeping with picturesque coastal towns the world over, it has a main street lined with cafes, over-priced dress shops and quaint little shops containing expensive and elegant tourist tat. Backpacking cured me of buying tourist tat, on the basis that I now justify whether I like something enough to want to carry it around with me, I therefore reduce my purchases to the odd postcard.
We had lunch in an organic Mexican cafe – Chez Shea, which was excellent. The cafe has won accolades from several local journals, and now from Jess and me. What higher recommendation can there be? We each had a very healthy soup and salad, and then a less healthy, but no less delicious dessert. We then wandered off in search of a beach and the sea. The pacific coastal highway is dotted with coves, beaches and scenic viewpoints all laid out for free. This stretch of the coast is slightly less scenic and $10 per beach. Most of these are funded via honesty boxes. In high summer, there are beach wardens, everyone has to pay the charge and they get enough visitors who will pay, I could therefore see the point of it. On a cold, blustery March Friday, are they mad?
Down the coast from Half Moon Bay is Pigeon Point, probably the prettiest of the beaches that we saw as we drove down the coast. It even has a lighthouse. We stayed a while whilst I tried to remember the guidance of the photography book I read in the library. There was no charge, therefore we weren't stealing the scenery and the wind.
We headed off for Santa Cruz. We both had high expectations of Santa Cruz and had picked it over San Jose for our stopover. It turned out to be a somewhat grungy seaside town, with a famed beach boardwalk which containing the West coast's last "old-style" amusement park. The roller-coaster was built in 1924 by Arthur Looff, who is apparently to rollercoasters what Armitage Shanks is to loos. Unfortunately the amusement park was closed due to the time of year, so we were denied the opportunity to throw up our organic salad lunch. We wandered along the wharf where Jess could revel in the gift shops, and I could practice my photography. We took tea on the wharf, excellent tea, but rather strange biscotti smothered in canned cream. Not quite in keeping with the original Italian recipe.
With my customary attention to detail and forward planning, we hadn't booked anywhere for the night. This worked in our favour, we were able to leave behind the delights of Santa Grunge and headed for San Jose for the night. We wanted to stay downtown, and navigated by the simple practice of 'let's head for the tall buildings'. There were no quaint, unique guesthouses, but the Hilton had an offer and lovely comfy rooms with huge bathrooms. It also had a very confusing parking system, which resulted in us being charged twice for overnight parking, but that was a tantrum for another day. We had a bit of a wander round San Jose and dined out at PF Chang's, a chain which has amazing lettuce wraps for an appetizer - any time we have them we always agree afterwards we should have shared a main. Why do we not remember this before? I still had room for a few local beers – Red Bridge, which was very good.
In the morning we had planned to wander around San Jose, which looked very nice, but it also looked very, very wet, cold and windy so we headed straight for the Winchester Mystery House. This was built by the widow of an heir to the Winchester Rifle fortune. Sarah Winchester's only child had died as a baby, and her husband had died about 15 years later of tuberculosis. In her grief she visited clairvoyant after clairvoyant to understand why these tragedies had happened to her. A medium told her that the ghosts of those killed by Winchester rifles were angry with her, and their deaths could only be avenged if she were to move out West and build a house that was never finished. This time-honoured manner of righting wrongs obviously appealed to the widow, because she moved out West and bought an eight-roomed house which she extended and changed beyong all recognition. Her 'architects' were the spirits she consulted from her nightly clairvoyance. On the other side there are apparently no required qualifications for architecture because Sarah's extensions were just tacked on to each other, resulting in doors opening on to a wall, or a 20 foot drop and stairs which lead nowhere. The windows were mainly stained lead crystal from Tiffany's. Sarah was mad as a hatter, and would not entertain anyone who would not do her bidding, therefore her building continued until her death in 1922. It is a fascinating place, full of curios, architectural insanity, but also a very sad tale of a woman driven mad by grief. If only the east coast medium had told her to build an orphanage, or a school for the gifted but poor, or look after old people who didn't have a $20 million fortune to keep them company in their insanity.
The house is accessed by guided tours only, we took a tour of the house and another 'behind the scenes'. Jaime, our house guide was knowledgeable, witty and pleasant. 20 people on the tour struggled to pay attention whilst a couple and the mother of one of them indulged their very loud and untrained toddler. You can never be certain who is responsible for a child's lack of training, so I made sure to glare at each of them with equal venom. The behind the scenes guide was barred to those under the age of six, bliss! Donald, our behind the scenes guide was full of bad jokes, about which he warned us, and had a slightly irritating manner. I felt guilty about being irritated, so I hung back slightly and took lots of photos.
After the Winchester House we had a wander round San Jose, which has lots of lovely shops that we couldn't afford, and a fantastic cupcake shop that we could afford. Kara's Cupcakes are a legend. The great thing at my age is that delicacies like these no longer go straight on to your hips, they hang around the area you used to call your waist. Of course I realised a cupcake isn’t a square meal, so I waited until we got home and made do with an excellent tri-tip steak sandwich from Pluto’s, washed down with Pyramid – a wheat beer which American breweries seem to make exceptionally well.
Laden down with cupcakes and fascinating facts about Sarah Winchester and her sad tale we returned to Woodland via a less circuitous route, and in half the time. On the distant hills we could see more wind mills blighting the view.

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Photos

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Half Moon Bay, California

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Inquisitive little bird who came to check out my handbag.

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Pigeon Point

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Pigeon Point Lighthouse

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Santa Cruz art deco building

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Californian Poppy

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Santa Cruz art deco

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Santa Cruz Rollercoaster

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Winchester Mystery House

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Winchester Mystery House, door to nowhere

Comments

[Robbie]

Tilting at windmills
Aha! Given that we agree on the ugliness and uselessness of windmills (except for grinding flour), I wonder if you might now regret voting for that little green pixie?