Sunny California Days and Maryland Yard Work

I’ve been out in California for a week now and have been having a great time. The training class I have been attending is very interesting and useful. I’ve also been making many friends from the other NASA centers.

I was invited to go hiking with a small group from the class a couple times this week. On Tuesday we went to Mission Peak – the trail was steep but we got some nice views of the surrounding area.




On Thursday we went to Castle Rock. This was one of the better hikes I’ve taken – the trail wasn’t very long but had a lot of diversity – great climbing rocks, a waterfall, beautiful views, woods and meadows.





Saturday we ran across the Golden Gate bridge (it was sooo windy), had dim sum in Chinatown, and went to a few wineries in Sonoma. Overall it was a great day!


Sunday, after church, I went to the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose. Mrs. Winchester (of the rifle fortune) was quite crazy. She believed that spirits of people killed by the Winchester were haunting her and that to appease them she needed to continuously build. Construction continued 24 hours a day every day for 38 years, only stopping when Mrs. Winchester died. The end result was a Victorian mansion that has 160 rooms.

The reason it is called a “Mystery” house is due to the crazy stairs, passageways, doors to nowhere, and secret séance room. Mrs. Winchester also had an obsession with the number 13.




While I was having all this fun, Chris was stuck in humid Maryland working on the house. He worked a lot on the sunroom and did a lot of yard work. He also installed all the balusters on the porch railing. I’m sure he has a lot of information to add to this description but I’ll be sure to include pictures of the house work next week.