Out of Office: Concours on the Avenue, Winchester Mystery House & Napa Valley

We began Tuesday with the Carmel Concours On The Avenue (COTA), where Carmel blocks off most of its downtown streets to host many of the classic cars in town for the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance later in the week. We went early in the day, so some of the cars had not yet arrived, but it was pretty wild standing on the sidewalk and watching hundreds of cars rumble through the street to their display spots - with values from $100,000 to $10 Million or more.

I am by no means a car junkie, but a few pictures below of ones I found interesting:

  

Check out the old-school chain drive on the back wheels of this one!

Of particular note was a 1954 Ferrari 375 MM Spider - with its own full history listed here. Pricing was available "upon request" (read: if you have to ask, you can't afford it), but people around us mentioned that it was estimated to go for $10 - $50 Million. Requisite picture of us drooling over car:

 

From Carmel we trucked up to Napa Valley, making a brief stop at the Winchester mystery house - the Victorian house constructed by Sarah Winchester, the widow of one of the Winchester rifle company presidents. After the tragic deaths of Sarah's baby and husband, the lady was advised by a psychic that the spirits were displeased with her because of all the deaths created by Winchester guns - and that she would have to continually construct her house without stopping in order to appease the spirits. The results: construction began in 1884 on a San Jose, California farmhouse and continued until Sarah's death in 1922, creating 160 rooms, with staircases leading nowhere, windows in floors, and other illogical architectural constructs. All of the furniture was removed from the house after her death and it took six trucks working eight hours a day six weeks to remove everything.  Sarah's life was actually quite tragic; she apparently slept in a different room every night to confuse the spirits as to her location, and lived the life of a complete recluse save her servants and a niece.

Window in the floor

 

From San Jose it was on to Napa Valley - our hotel (Andaz Napa, a line of more contemporary hotels owned by Hyatt) and resting up for a day of touring tomorrow!