Sometimes while on road trips I tend to wake up very early ... either because the excitement of the day is constantly on my mind or because the surroundings are not familiar. When this happens I tend to want to get my day started immediately which I know I can't because it's still too early, well before 6 am, so I take my time getting ready. Jacob is usually up by 4:40 but Riley sure isn't and he needs his full 11 hours of sleep.
We were all ready and out the hotel by 8:15 am and headed on over to Chick-fil-a for breakfast. The chick-fil-a in Santa Rosa is so big.
Our first stop of the day was Bodega Bay. I'm a fan of Alfred Hitchcock's 1963 movie The Birds and wanted to take advantage of visiting while we made our way down the coast. And who knew that Tippi Hendren is Melanie Griffith's mother! I didn't until a few years ago when I looked her up. Tippi's character's name in this movie was Melanie. What a touching thing to do (Melanie Griffith was born in '57).
I love these back roads.
Cows are always interesting to see. A staple of farmlands.
Farms and hilly pastures have such an organic feel to them and the scenery is beautiful. I love the yellow/brown tones.
As soon as I saw Bodega Bay I tried to visualize how things looked in the movie The Birds. It's been a long time since '63, unfortunately a lot has changed.
The store where Melanie goes into asking for directions to Mitch Brenner's home is no longer there, from what I can remember. Everything looks so different. This is the bay where Tippi borrows a boat and heads across the bay to Mitch's house.
The schoolhouse is the only remaining building which is twenty five minutes away in the town of Bodega.
The green trim and the fence were added and there's houses all around now. It would be cool if filming locations stayed exactly how they were in movies. It's unfortunate that they don't.
** Original schoolhouse scene from the movie The Birds via the internet **
Although Bodega Bay has completely changed since 1963, it was still a good experience having gone there and visualizing the movie scenes.
We got back on the 101 by 11:30 am. On our way to San Francisco for lunch.
The Golden Gate Bridge is one of the few cool things about San Francisco.
This time we stopped at Ghirardelli Ice Cream & Chocolate Shop. Didn't take pictures of the inside but their ice cream floats looked very yummy. We didn't get any because we hand't yet eaten and we didn't want to spend too much time here. We did buy some candy to eat later. For us it's usually an in and out visit ... just long enough to grab something to eat.
And since we know China Town has lots of places to eat and it's quite iconic we usually make a stop here. For this visit we ate at Sam Woo. It was decent.
Riley was getting a bit bored since in his terms there "wasn't anything fun to do" so we told him to take a nap. We told him that the next place we were stopping at would be exciting and creepy. That kept him intrigued and wouldn't stop asking about it, trying to get us to tell him but we kept it a secret.
Ta-daaaa! Another place I was looking forward to visiting. I became a big fan of the Winchester Mystery House since the movie Winchester came out last year. I watch that movie all the time. I find the vibe of the movie particular calm and interesting. It's more suspenseful than it is scary ... all in the name of entertainment of course.
It's quite spectacular ...
... and magnificent!
This is one of the few pictures of Sarah Winchester.
Such an intriguing house. See that upstairs door to the right? It opens up to nothing.
I didn't take many pictures of the inside but here are a few.
It was so warm inside the house, yuck!
Also, I am a big fan of Ghost Adventures and they actually investigated the Winchester house (twice) and the episode does show paranormal activity. The only place I got a weird feeling in the whole house was in Mrs. Winchester's bedroom. I got goosebumps all over my body which is very odd because when we visited it was early July and it was very warm inside. The house has no a/c.
One of the several kitchens.
The gardens are very pretty. There's also a pear tree in the back garden.
There's also this fun bit of entertainment to test your aiming skills, the Sarah's Attic Shooting Gallery & Arcade Games.
Now we took the 1 and stopped to see Shark Fin Rock in Davenport which is thirty minutes before reaching Santa Cruz.
Going back to the coast is so relaxing! We had to put on our sweaters ... it was pleasantly chilly, such a relief!
Riley's so funny. His Nacho pose, lol! He did it all on his own. So cheesy. I'm sure he'll be embarrassed about this picture when he's older. Would be a great picture to put on his high school yearbook 😆
Going on a short walk ... good for stretching his legs and burn off some energy. It is pretty here!
Gorgeous!
Un ranchero con su caballo (a rancher with his horse).
Day four was such a full fun day. I got two things crossed off my mental bucket list. I thoroughly enjoyed each place we visited.
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