Welcome to EverWanderWhy!
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  • Live
    • Caribbean Cruise >
      • 2019-12-23 - Saint Thomas
      • 2019-12-24 - Antigua
      • 2019-12-25 - Saint Kitts
      • 2019-12-26 - Barbados
      • 2019-12-27 - Martinique
      • 2019-12-28 - Trinidad
      • 2019-12-30 - Curacao
      • 2019-12-31 - Aruba
    • 2016 - NYC with Gwen
    • 2016-07 - Colorado - Maroon Bells >
      • 2016-07-01 - Maroon Bells - Denver to Aspen
      • 2016-07-02 - Maroon Bells - Buckskin Pass
      • 2016-07-03 - Maroon Bells - Trail Rider Pass
      • 2016-07-04 - Maroon Bells - Frigid Air Pass and West Maroon Pass
      • 2016-07-05 - Maroon Bells - Gunnison and Denver
    • 2016-05-28 - Tracy and Greg's Wedding
    • 2016-05-27 - Reunion
    • San Francisco 2016-02 >
      • 2016-02-19 - SF201602 - Flying to San Francisco
      • 2016-02-20 - SF201602 - Full Day in San Francisco
      • 2016-02-21 - SF201602 - Cycling Around San Francisco
      • 2016-02-22 - SF201602 - California Academy of Sciences
    • Northwest Road Trip >
      • 2015-08-05 - Northwest Road Trip - Seattle - Part I
      • 2015-08-06 - Northwest Road Trip - Seattle - Part II
      • 2015-08-07 - Northwest Road Trip - Mount Rainier - Part I
      • 2015-08-08 - Northwest Road Trip - Mount Rainier - Part II
      • 2015-08-09 - Northwest Road Trip - Portland
      • 2015-08-10 - Northwest Road Trip - Crater Lake - Part I
      • 2015-08-11 - Northwest Road Trip - Crater Lake - Part II
      • 2015-08-12 - Northwest Road Trip - Lava Beds
      • 2015-08-13 - Northwest Road Trip - Lassen Volcanic
      • 2015-08-14 - Northwest Road Trip - Redding
      • 2015-08-16 - Northwest Road Trip - San Francisco - Part I
      • ​2015-08-17 - Northwest Road Trip - San Jose
      • ​​2015-08-20 - Northwest Road Trip - San Francisco - Part II
    • Puerto Rico >
      • 2015-03-30 - Puerto Rico - Walking around San Juan
      • 2015-03-31 - Puerto Rico - Hiking within the Clouds
      • 2015-04-01 - Puerto Rico - Arecibo and La Cueva Del Indio
      • 2015-04-02 - Puerto Rico - Culebra Island
      • 2015-04-03 - Puerto Rico - Angeles Cave
  • Learn
    • Books, Podcasts, Videos
    • 2016-06-12 - NMG Top-Rope Anchors Course
    • Fermat's Room
  • Ride
    • Greater NYC Area >
      • 2016-06-25 - Bike to Poughkeepsie and Discover Hudson Valley
      • 2016-05-28 - Bear Mountain
      • 2016-06-04 - Longest Day and Cape May
      • 2015-10-25 - Tour de Bronx
    • Bike the US for MS
    • Morris Area Freewheelers >
      • 2016-06-11 - MAFW 2016 Revolutionary Ramble
    • New York Cycle Club >
      • NYCC 2015 B-SIG 17 >
        • 2015-04-11 - NYCC B-SIG 17 - Ride V to Nyack
        • 2015-04-18 - NYCC B-SIG 17 - Ride VI to Oyster Bay
        • 2015-04-25 - NYCC B-SIG 17 - Ride VII to Armonk
        • 2015-05-10 - NYCC B-SIG 17 - Ride IX to Bear Mountain and Cold Spring - Part I
        • 2015-05-10 - NYCC B-SIG 17 - Ride IX to Bear Mountain and Cold Spring - Part II
        • 2015-05-10 - NYCC B-SIG 17 - Ride IX to Bear Mountain and Cold Spring - Part III
  • Trek
    • Guide to Trekking
    • Palisades Interstate Park >
      • 2019-11-30 - Palisades Interstate Park Loop
      • 2019-11-16 - Palisades Interstate Park Walk
    • Long Island >
      • 2019-05-25 - Long Island Greenbelt Trail
      • 2019-03-30 - Cold Spring Harbor to Massapequa Traverse
    • New Jersey >
      • 2019-12-15 - Mount Tammany Loop
      • 2019-06-08 - Mount Tammany
      • 2019-05-18 - Freewalkers 2019 Big Walk
      • 2019-04-28 - EverWanderWhy Hudson County Historic Tour II
      • 2019-04-27 - EverWanderWhy Hudson County Historic Tour I
      • 2019-04-14 - Freewalkers Between Walk
      • 2018-04-17 - NJ Ultra Festival
      • 2019-04-07 - D&R Canal Trail - Trenton to New Brunswick
      • 2018-02-17 - Frozen Febapple
      • 2017-06-10 - Freewalkers 2017 Hudson River Loop
      • 2017-05-20 - Freewalkers 2017 Big Walk
      • 2017-04-15 - Freewalkers 2017 Between Walk
      • 2017-01-21 - Delaware and Raritan Canal Walk
      • 2016-08-13 - Lenape Trail
      • 2016-05-21 - Freewalkers 2016 Big Walk
      • 2015-05-16 - Freewalkers 2015 Big Walk
    • Catskills >
      • 2019-05-11 - Devil's Path
      • ​2016-09-03 - Catskills Trip
    • Shawangunk Mountains >
      • 2019-05-04 - Mohonk Preserve Rock the Ridge 50
      • 2017-05-06 - Rock the Ridge 2017
    • Hudson Highlands >
      • 2019-12-07 - Harriman-Bear Mountain 7 Peak Challenge
      • 2019-04-06 - Ramapo-Dunderberg Trail Traverse
      • 2019-03-23 - Suffern-Bear Mountain Trail
      • 2017-12-16 - Beacon to Breakneck Ridge Bypass
      • 2017-11-25 - Harriman North 7 Peak Challenge
      • 2017-05-13 - Bear Mountain 50K
      • 2016-05-15 - Bull Hill
    • New York City Greater Area >
      • 2019-03-16 - Shorewalkers 47th GMBW
      • 2018-03-03 - Shorewalkers 45th GMBW
      • 2017-06-03 - Shorewalkers 43rd GMBW
      • 2017-05-16 - Scouting Run
      • 2016-06-18 - Shorewalkers 40th GMBW
      • 2016-05-07 - Shorewalkers 2016 Great Saunter
      • 2016-02-27 - Shorewalkers 39th GMBW
      • 2015-10-31 - Shorewalkers 38th GMBW
      • 2015-05-02 - Shorewalkers 2015 Great Saunter
    • Pennsylvania >
      • 2018-03-31 - Naked Prussian
    • Long Path Project >
      • 2018-03-17 - Long Path - New City to Fort Lee
      • 2017-04-29 - Long Path - High Point to Wurtsboro
      • 2017-04-22 - Long Path - Lake Skannatati to Monroe
      • 2016-12-10 - Long Path - Nyack to Lake Skannatati
      • 2016-12-03 - Long Path - Fort Lee to Nyack
      • 2016-05-29 - Shorewalkers GWB to Nyack
    • Brooklyn Botanic Garden >
      • 2015-05-03 - Brooklyn Botanic Garden - Part I
      • 2015-05-03 - Brooklyn Botanic Garden - Part II
      • 2015-05-03 - Brooklyn Botanic Garden - Part III
      • 2015-05-03 - Brooklyn Botanic Garden - Part IV
    • Old Croton Aqueduct >
      • 2015-04-12 - Old Croton Aqueduct I - Part I
      • 2015-04-12 - Old Croton Aqueduct I - Part II
      • 2015-04-12 - Old Croton Aqueduct I - Part III
      • 2015-04-19 - Old Croton Aqueduct II - Part I
      • 2015-04-19 - Old Croton Aqueduct II - Part II
      • 2015-04-19 - Old Croton Aqueduct II - Part III
      • 2015-04-19 - Old Croton Aqueduct II - Part IV
      • 2015-04-26 - Old Croton Aqueduct III - Part I
      • 2015-04-26 - Old Croton Aqueduct III - Part II
      • 2015-04-26 - Old Croton Aqueduct III - Part III
      • 2015-04-26 - Old Croton Aqueduct III - Part IV

​​2015-08-17 - Northwest Road Trip - San Jose

The Winchester Mystery House is a large mansion in San Jose, California currently operated as a tourist site. It used to be the home of Sarah Winchester, widow of famous gun-maker William Wirt Winchester. The tour is ran with the backstory that the house is haunted by ghosts and originally built to appease the ghosts of people killed by the Winchester rifle. The tale goes that Winchester under the mystic guidance of spirits was ordered to built a house that would never be completed, to serve as a boarding house for all the dead. Thus, work begun and ran nonstop, 24-hours a day for 38 years. The work was finally stopped on her death in September 5, 1922. This led to a behemoth of 160 rooms, 40 bedrooms, 47 fireplaces, and 3 elevators. The guides will also tell you that the number 13 was Sarah's favorite number and point out various number 13's represented on the property including the 13 bathrooms, although they were all built in different times and one is barely started. Sarah was a quiet, reserved women during her lifetime, especially in her ceaseless mourning after her husband's death. The ghost story was accepted at a time when everyone wondered about her eccentric activities and no other explanation was available.
We did both the Mansion Tour and the Garden Tours. They were pricey but worth doing once. The guide provided Chinese audio guides for my parents for the Mansion Tour which was nice. The property is certainly eccentric including inverted columns and tiny stairs as well as stairs and doors that lead to nowhere. There are also many innovations that sometimes get downplayed by the spiritual hoopla.  These include modern indoor toilets and plumbing, steam and forced-air, a personal hot shower, elevators, one used to move plants between the garden and indoor greenhouse-like room, and integrated washboards to sinks. A few of the innovations may well have been Sarah's own invention. It took a great amount of wealth to construct the house, funded from Winchester's inheritance. She certainly did not go cheap. A window designed by Tiffany for example, is designed to cast a rainbow into the room when sunlight hits it. Nowadays however, it only shows the side of another wall.

​A more plausible explanation for the property as presented by some researchers into the subject is that Sarah Winchester was an aspiring architect in a time when female architects did not exist. Not needing anyone's permission or funding, she simply did it herself, on her own home, over time. These innovations and constructions over time, especially reconstruction after an earthquake that trapped her in her room, has led to the eccentric nature of the house. She also grew fruits and sold them after drying, seemingly doing it for fun as she did not want for more money. No ghost story incorporates that. And if you believe in the ghost that haunts the house, well apparently the ghost has changed. There is a photo of workmen in the house, and the suspicious-looking one in the photo was supposed to be haunting the house, pushing a cart in the basement. Well, from the lead guide himself, he said that when he started working there many years ago, they were told the ghost was one man and since then, it has changed to another. All the while, he has never seen the spiritual visitor himself. It certainly is a cool place to explore. It is well-furnished and decorated. Still under repair, it is well maintained by the current owners and seem to be making a great deal of money. Perhaps, the ghost stories just draw more nonspiritual visitors.
After a subpar lunch at a Chinese takeout place that somehow had good reviews, we ended our daytrip with a visit to the San Jose Municipal Rose Garden. It is an attractive historical landmark that welcomes thousands of visitors each year. Free and open with something in bloom every season, it was pleasurable for a short visit. And there you go, two of my mother's favorite things: houses and flowers.