Elks Lodge #522
San Jose, California
We arrived in San Jose on Monday and plan to stay for about a week while we tour some of the sites. First on our agenda was the Winchester Mystery House.
It's impossible to describe this house that was under construction 24 hours a day for 38 years. This 160 room mansion was built by Sarah Winchester, widow of William Winchester (rifle manufacturer) without the benefit of an architect or blueprints and under personal guidance received daily at a seance.There are enumerable unique aspects but I especially liked the car wash. We toured the basement hoping to catch a glimpse of the most popular spirit residing in the house, the wheelbarrow man, but he failed to make an appearance while we were there.
There are some strange things in this town. The Target stores have TWO STORIES! Target even has escalators for the shopping carts.
Yesterday we went out for the day stopping first at the Computer History Museum. It was also the last stop because I couldn't get Dave out of there until it was closing.
This automatic computing engine was designed by Charles Babbage in 1849. It was fascinating to watch it in operation.
Dave used to work on just about everything in the museum and he really enjoyed talking with the docents and exchanging stories of days gone by.
This museum even had a fully functional IBM 1401 system in a demonstration lab. Don't you miss the days of punch cards?
Inside a 1403 printer
I entertained myself checking out the Google self driving car.
Were you afraid they'd keep Dave to add to the collection? Bill didn't like the house--he couldn't understand how someone could ruin such a beautiful place.
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