Day 4 - Calistoga to Santa Cruz

We were up on Day 4 with baby soft skin and a gorgeous sunrise. Plans to work on our tans dissipated with the realisation that things get C O L D by the coast/desert. There was steam coming off the pools and ponds where the sun was warming up the thin layers of ice. Instead, we popped to the Calistoga Roastery (which I think is American for Cafe) and then to Dean & Deluca to pick up a picnic lunch. With a relatively easy day ahead we thought we'd get some shopping in while making our way to Sarah Winchester's former home, the Winchester Mystery House.

I only wish they'd let me take pictures in there. There were bannisters at approximately four and a half feet high, windows in the floor, seventy or so stair to get as high as five feet, doors into walls. It was majestic in its bizzareness. We walked a couple of miles through corridors and ended up where we started, which was just outside the picnic garden. From Winchester Mystery House, we headed out to Santa Cruz and found a reasonably priced hotel for the evening. It met our stringent demand of having a pool, which sealed the deal for us. We chilled out by the pool before following the San Lorenzo Riverway to the Boardwalk. On the way down we got talking to a Mexican family walking their dog, who traded us local and Mexican trivia for Singaporean and English equivalents. It was a two mile walk down past Downtown and some residential patches, with a great view of the community and town. The boardwalk was quiet, with just a handful of surfers left for the sunset. We played a couple of games at the Boardwalk, including a randomly accurate fortune-telling game.

The surfer dudes (no joke, people really called each other Dude) pointed us in the direction of the Surfrider cafe, where we tried local wines and beers, and tucked into burgers with the best onion rings ever and sweet potato freedom fries for me. This was the first time we'd ever come up against the power of the American sized portion. Despite having had a small picnic lunch and walked five miles by this time, we only managed to clear half our plates and even that was a struggle. It didn't stop James from ordering an exceptional milkshake for the walk home. On our way back to the hotel/motel/Holiday Inn, we stopped off at a liquor store and bought CA lotto tickets with the numbers from the fortune telling game. We were feeling very lucky indeed.