Happy Father's Day

Folsom

One last part of California- we stayed in Folsom where Abe's aunt Robin, uncle Corey and cousins live. Folsom is a quaint little town with restored old buildings and fabulous little shops and restaraunts all within walking distance of Robin & Corey's house. (It reminds me a lot of Jackson) Their house is kind of in a historic district, like the homes in the Crow's addition in I.F. So they are older - but older to me = beautiful and charming :) I like these houses because of their history and the fact that antique pieces look SO good in them. Even in the garden. I loved this tea cup planter in Robin's garden. She had a few of them, and beautiful fruit trees and flowers. I grabbed a few quick shots. And of course one of the fam.
Folsom is famous for it's prison (as mentioned by Johnny Cash.) So we made our last stop at the prison on the way OUT of town. It is fully operating too. We went to the museum and saw misc prisoner's weapons, "Sam" the model prisoner, and outside- real live 2008 prisoners loading into a van. It was a pretty special experience...we were free to go after buying our souvenir T-shirts!

California

So basically the rest of our trip to california consisted of the Winchester Mystery House and a theme park called Great America. I took the camera to the Winchester house and not Great America because I thought I might be on a roller coaster and the camera would fly out of my hands and shatter into a hundred pieces! The Winchester House was this crazy place that made no sense. Stairways to a ceiling, windows and doors to no where, 13 everywhere, massive, maze, old. But way cool. We took a tour of most of the 160 room house and then a behind the scenes tour into the basement to see how innovative that mansion was for it's day! The woman who owned it, Sarah Winchester, loved the number 13, spiderwebs, seyances, and had very expensive taste. There were probably hundreds of Tiffany glass windows, wood floors, hand carved wood trim, fireplaces, multiple kitchens... on and on. Check out the website or google her for more info. It's fascinating! There were some other kooky things to see as well like the gingerbread version of the house made in like 1993 and was featured in BHG magazine. And also the famous Winchester Rifle Museum too. It may sound strange, but this was a place I had wanted to visit for a long time so thanks to the Campbell's for making my wish come true! :)