Categories: FriendsNapaPhotographyvacation

Napa/San Jose Trip Part 3

Ok kids, I am going to try to keep this as short and sweet as possible. TRY being the key word here…

In San Jose we stayed at the very swanky Hotel Valencia in the area of Santana Row. It’s a really cool area of San Jose with tons of shopping and a pretty happenin’ night life. The hotel was right in the middle of all the action and it made me feel young again. Oh and breakfast was included. (now that made me sound old. oh well).

Here are are few shots of the hotel and surrounding areas:

After breakfast we walked over to the Winchester Mystery House. You need to click the link for the better pictures and info but it was pretty awesome. The Heathers had already done the tour so Jennifer and I decided to split off from them and go ourselves. Let’s just say it’s basically an enormous haunted house with really awesome Tiffany glass windows and a “rich” history. The woman who built the place loved spider webs, the number 13 and fooling the “spirits” with doors to nowhere. You can draw your own conclusions…

A view of a portion of the back of the house from the gardens. This place is HUGE!
VERY expensive Tiffany glass window

Spider web windows

After we were thoroughly spooked Jennifer and I met back up with the other girls and headed out to lunch, my family’s old homestead and… Trader Joe’s!! Yes people, I finally got to shop at T.J.s! I am totally bummed (that’s Cali talk for disappointed) that I didn’t get a picture of me inside the chocolate and cookie and “I-wish-I-could-take-one-of-everything-in-this-aisle-home” aisle, but oh well. Here are our bags (and two of them are mine and full!)

So………does anyone remember how I said I brought the smallest suitcase? And when I say small I mean…. well… pretty small. Anyway, I tried not to panic as I considered how little room I had for all this stuff… (don’t worry, this part of the story has a happy ending).

But before T.J.s, we drove through the neighborhood where the house stands that my parents first brought me home to after I was born. I have NO memories of this house because I was only 16 months or so when we left California. I have however seen pictures. This is me in the front yard back in 1976.

And here’s me in front of the house 32 years later…

I wonder if the current owners were there to question why some strange woman was having her picture taken outside the front of their house. I know I’d be curious. Acutally, I don’t think anyone was home (thank goodness!)

After the “blast from the past” trip down Tonopah Drive, and the T.J.s experience, we made our last winery stop. (Yes! We even found one in San Jose!) We had a lovely “complimentary” tasting at J. Lohr and Jennifer even bought a bottle there. The wine was actually quite good and it was a nice ending to our winery experiences.

We drove back to the Santana Row area and did some shopping and one Heather and I each got a pedicure. Then we had dinner and drinks and hit the hotel bar for a little while and then these “ole” girls were done!

And, I was able to fit ALL of this into my suitcase, and two carry-ons, including an oversized purse I bought at H&M.

God bless cheap accessories! Saved my bacon!

The trip was wonderful and I wish we could do it every year (we are planning to make this an annual thing to different locales – did you hear that honey? {wink, wink}) Thanks to my girls for being wonderful traveling buddies and thanks especially to Jen for driving. Love you all! MWAH!

Elaine