Super Natural Weekend with Kris

This last weekend I was able to celebrate 40 years on the earth with my cousin Kris. She flew up from Southern California and we enjoyed two days of roaming the area looking at mysterious and amazing things.

First we went to have brunch at Hobee's. I made Kris try their amazing coffee cake and she agreed with me that it was amazing. This is why we are friends who happen to be related. After Hobee's it was off to the Winchester Mystery House. This is somewhere that Kris has always wanted to go. We checked out all the stuff! We did the mansion tour which is over 1 mile of walking through rooms designed by Sarah Winchester to keep the ghosts at bay. We then did the behind the scenes tour and even scared someone while in the basement by making fake ghost noises. (It's the little things that amuse you.)

After Winchester it was time for a snack so of course we went to Wienerschnitzel. It was even an A Frame one. Life is good.

We came home and got all pretty for our night on the town. We started with a nice dinner at Mongolian BBQ in Santa Clara. YUMMY!! And then it was off to XANADU! It was amazing again. What a wonderful show! We all loved very hard and Kris took some good photos of herself with the scenery and her Xanadonut.

On Sunday we went to 3 hours of church and 2 of them were on genealogy. We learned about the new programs for sharing and searching for data on your dead relatives. After church we enjoyed a lite lunch and then it was off to the Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz. No matter how many times I've gone, I always enjoy it. It's just so goofy!

After the Mystery Spot it was off to the Santa Cruz wharf for a bit of Sea Lion spotting. I was hoping to show Kris this float that they love to hang out on, but the float was not there. But while down there we did see a huge male sea lion pop up and look at us. Kris was able to get a picture of him leaving. We also saw a couple of sea lions lounging as they do under the wharf on the planks. And we saw a couple off playing in the water.

Then we hopped back in the car to go up the coast to Pigeon Point Lighthouse. We went to see the Harbor Seals and they were there lounging. A baby harbor seal was in the water looking for a good landing. And when he got up, we got to see him wiggling about. (so funny!) We then were able to see some whales. Yeah, we weren't expecting that. We saw two whales (one was a baby). We enjoyed watching for them. And then walked to another view of the lighthouse and while there saw a sea otter playing down near the beach. And we were pointing him out to some people when they said, there were more whales and we turned around and sure enough, three more whales had come.

After we got done watching the sea otter and looking for more whales we got back in the car to go further up the coast to Moss Beach Distillery. It took us a lot longer than expected because part of the road was washed out near Pescadero and it took us like an hour to get past that part.

At Moss Beach Distillery we were able to watch the sunset while waiting for our table. Also that is when we found out about the death of Osama bin Laden. In between all of that, we were looking for signs of the "Blue Lady" (the ghost that haunts the Moss Beach Distillery.) We didn't see her, but we enjoyed our dinner and fabulous view. It was quite an expensive meal. Kris told me it was the most she had ever paid for a meal in her life.

Than it was off to my home. Over the Santa Cruz mountains and to bed. The next morning I dropped Kris off at the San Jose Airport and she left to go back to Burbank. It was a wonderful trip with Kris. Maybe we can do something similar when we are both 80!