Day 14

The last 24 hours have been extremely mysterious. The end.
...
Okay, fine, I'll fill you in. Last night I checked out the Mystery Spot, a warped cabin deep in the woods of Santa Cruz where trees grow crookedly and the laws of nature don't apply. Because I was doing research for a guide, they let me in for free, and I ran to catch up to a tour that had just left. The tour guide bothered me at first because he spoke in that typical lilting, obviously rehearsed voice that so many tour guides adopt. He also freaked me out because he was very tall and lanky with a narrow face, and he seemed disconcertingly at home at the Mystery Spot. First, he showed us a plank that looked like it was higher at one end... but rolled a ball UP the plank, from the lower end to the higher one!
No way. I needed to see more. So he took us inside the cabin, which looked like this:The cabin was absolutely nuts. Because of its angle on the side of a hill, it was impossible to stand upright... except in the strangest places, like this table:
I am having the time of my life in that picture. Especially because I love asking strangers, "Could you take a picture of me?" and ignoring their pitying looks as they realize that not only am I traveling by myself... I am traveling by myself to the Mystery Spot.
The worst part about the Mystery Spot was that Lanky Tour Guide never told us what was up. He spouted some bogus explanations about aliens and a nearby lava bed, but I want to return to the Mystery Spot with a physicist and just say, "What... the hell. Really. This spot is so mysterious, now tell me why."

I spent the night in a hostel in Santa Cruz, then woke up super early to start researching at 7:30am... but nothing opened until at least 9am. Hostels are weird because you can't just sleep in as late as you want. Once people around you start waking up, so do you. Since I was up and useless, I decided to check out the Boardwalk. Here's a shot of it from the nearby wharf:

Notice from the picture: Boardwalks are creepy in the early morning light, partly because they are shut down and littered with crushed popcorn boxes and old ticket stubs from the previous night. Walking around the Boardwalk, I became aware of the distinct sensation that I was being watched by a vampire. The vampire part is key: my hypothetical stalker wasn't just some homeless beach bum. I became convinced that the vampire was lurking somewhere near the old wooden rollercoaster, behind one of the arcade games. How did I know this? Once I had safely escaped the Boardwalk area, I pondered the source of my fright.

Then it hit me, and I was transported back in time about 3 years to my friend Gizmo's couch, where we watched a young, undead Kiefer Sutherland lead a gang of vampires as they wrecked havoc on a California beach town in the 1987 classic The Lost Boys. After doing some research (i.e. looking it up on Wikipedia) I discovered that The Lost Boys had been filmed at the Boardwalk in Santa Cruz. The very same Boardwalk that gave me the chills early this morning. There's one mystery solved.

But I was about to encounter another. It came in the form of the Winchester Mystery House, a gigantic Victorian Mansion owned by Sarah Winchester. She was the heiress to the Winchester rifle fortune. After her husband and baby died, a psychic told her that in order to escape the spirits of those killed by Winchester rifles, Sarah needed to move west and begin the never-ending construction of a mansion. So she did (duh, the psychic said to). Construction continued on her house 24 hours a day for 38 years straight. It's a crazy maze of rooms with a staircase that leads straight to the ceiling:

and doors that lead to nowhere, in order to confuse the spirits. Here's part of the house from the 4th-floor balcony:
Was Sarah Winchester a nutcase, or was she really communing with threatening spirits?

It's a mystery. Surprise!