Better late than never...

Even though it was almost two months ago, I’d like to finally tell you about our trip to San Francisco. I decided to we should camp in order to save money, but it seems camping in California is pretty popular because most campsites were booked up – damn hippies. We ended up in a Redwoods state park that was lovely; the only downside was that it took nearly 2 hours to get to the city. It had looked close enough on the map…lesson learned – Never underestimate the size of California. It worked out well though because we were close enough to San Jose to visit the Winchester house. Mark spotted the billboards for the house on our way to the park and insisted we make that a priority. And see, we never would have known it was there if it weren’t for the campsite in Timbuktu. A quick background: the Winchester house was built by Mrs. Winchester after her husband, the second president of the famous gun company, passed away. The story is that she thought the house was haunted by ghosts of those killed by Winchester guns. She believed the ghosts could be appeased as long as she was always building on her house, and so her house was constantly under construction for the 30 years she lived there. It is most well known for its very odd architecture. There are stairs that lead to walls, a door that leads to nothing, 1 inch deep cabinets… you get the idea. It was a fun place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there. A bit creepy, I must admit, but it does have that cool Victorian West look going for it.

Maker Faire was our real reason for going to San Francisco that weekend. The fair was a huge gathering of creative types with interests as varied as jet packs to knitted toys. Some of the more interesting things we saw include: segway rugby, a lego city, a giant robotic giraffe, and artists that use a robot to cut their designs into wood.

The other big part of the fair was the bazaar bizarre. It was sort of like a flea market except with all handmade goods being sold. There was lots of great stuff – t-shirt stencils that put any of mine to serious shame and I almost came home with an apron made out of a vintage tablecloth, but none of them fit quite right. The best part of the bazaar was that I actually go to meet one of my heroes – Leah Kramer. She started that website, www.craftster.org, that I love so much and has recently published a book of kitschy crafts. Another awesome woman of craftiness I got to meet was Jess Hutch. She designs and photographs knit toys, and she gave a workshop at the fair that I made sure to attend. If you’re into knitting, then you should really check out her stuff. She has a free bunny pattern on her site that I love.

Lastly, we tried to squeeze in some typical touristy stuff in the city. We saw and drove over the Golden Gate Bridge, went to Pier 39 and saw seals, and visited Ghiradelli square. Mark was mightily disappointed to see that the chocolate factory was no longer in production at that site. I think he envisioned something similar to the scene in Willie Wonka with the chocolate river. Otherwise the trip was great, and I can’t wait to go back. We really didn’t even scrape the surface of all the many things there are to do in the city.