Alcatraz

San Francisco RV Resort, Pacifica, CA:  Drove back to San Francisco this morning.  Had to be at the tour office on Leavenworth St. between 9:00 and 11:00 a.m. to pick up our Alcatraz tour tickets.  Luckily, our tour was at 12:30.  At least that’s when we boarded the ferry.  So we walked down North Point and stopped at the Hollywood Café and had breakfast.  Then continued walking down to Pier 33 and got in line for our ferry.  After we boarded, it was a short ride out to Alcatraz.  Another beautiful day.  It was a very interesting tour.  There were about 70 employees out there and their families who lived on Alcatraz in employee housing.  Actually, it was a great place for families.  There were several boats over to San Francisco every day.  And the children of the workers took a ferry to San Francisco to school every day.  The cell block was on top of “The Rock” and we had an energetic walk up the equivalent of a 12-story building.  One of the amazing things on this island was the gardens.  They built a fort out here in the 1860s during the Civil War.  And then it became a military prison.  That’s when they started the gardens.  They took soil from the adjacent islands and brought it over to Alcatraz which was basically a limestone rock.  During the time of Alcatraz as a federal prison, the families, and even the prisoners, worked on the gardens.  And they’re thriving today.  I bought a book, “Breaking the Rock” by Jolene Babyak who lived on Alcatraz as a child.  Her father was the acting warden.  It’s about the amazing escape in 1962 where four convicts escaped after placing dummy masks in their beds and spending months of digging through concrete, stealing supplies to make life vests and a raft.  Three of them were never seen again.  Should be a good read.  After our tour we had dinner at the Franciscan Crab Restaurant on the bay.  Then walked back to our parking garage and headed back.  We thought we’d head east on North Point to the Embarcadero and then on to the 280. That would have been a great way to get out of town if the Giants hadn’t been playing a game tonight at the AT&T Stadium on The Embarcadero (sigh).  We were in gridlock traffic until we passed the stadium and then it was clear sailing.  Made it back okay.  And no marine layer tonight.  70 today in San Francisco!  A beautiful, sunny day!   

A hang glider sailing along the bluff behind us.

A little bird has a nest on the edge of the bluff behind us.

The lighthouse and Warden's quarters on Alcatraz.

Approaching Alcatraz.  Power plant on the right.  Storage building in the center.

One of the cells.

View of San Francisco from Alcatraz.

Some of the gardens.