We drove up to San Francisco from L.A. on Sunday morning. We drove the dreaded I-5 for most of the way just to get there. We stopped at the Harris Ranch for breakfast. They have more than 100,000 head of cattle and is the biggest producer of beef in California. Luckily, we didn't smell the ranch until AFTER we ate and left the restaurant. Had I smelled those cows first, I don't know if I could have stopped for food. It was delicious, though.
Lombard Street
The Golden Gate bridge, of course!
The Palace of Fine Arts
We drove the Golden Gate bridge a second time and stopped at different view points.
We saw this guy (or gal) chilling on the docks. Michael names him/her Miles. We saw hundreds of them later in the night. They were hilarious! And super loud and seemingly complaining to each other constantly.
Then we did a behind the scenes tour of Alcatraz. It was awesome! Probably the highlight of the whole trip so far.
The original sign from the days of Military control.
The island truly is a rock.
We happened to be there on the 48th anniversary of the Native American occupation of the island. They held the island for 19 months. Some of the original occupants from those months were in attendance for a ceremony this day. It was really beautiful to see of their ceremonial dances.
Some more random pictures.
A 100+ year old Eucalyptus tree planted by the original soldiers stationed on the island.
As part of the Behind the Scenes tour, we got to go into the morgue! Also, this was John, our NPS tour guide. He was awesome!
The room where they iced the bodies.
You can see the original tracks for the drawbridge when this was a citadel with a surrounding moat.
These cells were tiny and miserable. If my memory serves, they were 5x9x7. They felt very cramped. Each convict had there own cell. There were 600 cells but no more than 300 inmates were housed on the island at any one time.
We got to go into the dungeon. It was slightly creepy.
The original support I-beams are just rusting away into swiss cheese. The NPS has been renovating slowly to preserve the buildings.
One of the cell blocks.
Al Capone's cell. He was housed her for 4 1/2 years for tax evasion (the only charge they could get him on) and was considered a model inmate.
Some of the recreated cells of the men who tunneled out and escaped. The three men were captured. There are 5 men unaccounted for that escaped from Alcatraz, the inescapable prison.
If you push play, you can here the cell doors close.
The recreation yard
The gun bridge where the correctional officers patrolled.
The modern solitary confinement cells in one of the cell blocks. They closed down the dungeon and called these the treatment unit.
What's left of the library.
The inmates tried to cozy-up their cells and make them home.
Some small windows could look outside. If the wind blew just right, the inmates could hear people laughing just more than a mile away across the bay. Many of the inmates never looked outside because they could see what they were missing.
The visitation room. Many inmates never had a single vistor while confined on Alcatraz. That made me sad.
The main control room.
The officer's uniforms.
The four wardens that were in charge during the years the island was a prison.
The first lighthouse built on the west coast in 1909.
The administration building.
What remains of the warden's house.
Views of San Francisco from the island.
Inside the wall where those three inmates tunneled into to escape.
The prison closed down on March 21, 1963 due to outrageous operating costs to run Alcatraz. The very last inmate admitted to the prison was the very last inmate to exit the prison.
The morgue at night.
We had dinner at Bubba Gump Shrimp at Pier 39. While it was crazy overpriced, everythjin g was really tasty.
FROM MICHAEL:
Cool.
FROM MIKE:
Tourist trap.
MY RANDOM THOUGHTS:
Alcatraz was awesome. Driving and parking in San Fran is a pain. The sea lions were great.
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