Woke up to sunshine and the crashing of waves around 6AM. I had rigged up the poles and let Jackson know that if he wanted to fish with me, it would be an early morning as we still have a lot of things on the list for San Francisco. He was not ready to head out into the cold this early, so I donned my boots and jacket, grabbed a pole and headed to the end of the RV Park where there is supposed to be access to the beach.
The trail down is a steep climb across clay, then about 50 feet of big rocks to traverse. Someone has tied ropes at various vantage points to help you get a handhold, but my hands are full of gear. Once down, I notice that the tide is low, so the advice to fish the rocks won’t work. I can tell that at high tide, the water level surrounds many of the rocks at the bottom here. I walk a ways up the beach to a spot where there are some rocks and give the line a throw. It is difficult to get the line out past the breakers as the waves are crashing and running 30 to 40 feet up the sand. I manage to get a few casts out, but then hook a rock and lose my first lure. Re-rig and try it again, this time staying a little further from the rocks. I cast at various places and work the shore line for a while, but nothing seems to be biting. After and hour, I pack it in and head back to the RV. I write it up to just the wrong time of day for the tides. It was very peaceful as I had the entire beach to myself this morning.
Once back I see that everyone is still sound asleep. I spend some time catching up my blog and then we get the kids up and going. Slow going again this morning and it is 10 before they are ready for me to hop in the shower. It has been nice having water, electric and cable here. Makes things much more manageable. As we head out the door, we notice that the fog has once again rolled in. Wendy decides that walking the Golden Gate Bridge may not make a lot of sense at this time. We saw it yesterday, and may try to hit it tonight. We head to downtown, and as we are just about there, it clears again. Blue skies and sunny. The weather here changes hourly – more variable than Chicago. We decide to circle back and give it a shot to see if we can get some pictures of the Golden Gate from the south vantage point. When we get there we find that although the skies are blue everywhere else, there is one cloud hanging over the bridge. It begins partway up the span and tops out just at the top.
Although we don’t have enough time to do the full hike over and back (this was on Wendy’s list of must dos and mine too), I suggest at least walking out a ways to get the feel of being on the bridge. I remind Charlotte that she has been across and back, albeit in a stroller when we were here years ago. The bridge is very busy as the west side is currently closed to all traffic. This is where the bikes usually run, so everyone is sharing one side. They all seem frustrated, and I can understand, especially if you had rented a bike expecting to bike the bridge only to find out you end up stopping and walking most of the way. We make it out to the where the cables start their ascent to the first tower. We notice the signs for crisis management and the phone they ask you to use if you are thinking about jumping. We got into a morbid discussion on the way home last night about how many people jump (it’s about 2 per month) and decide having this phone as a last resort was probably a good thing.
We get a few pictures and then head back to the car as we need to make it back to the pier to catch our boat to Alcatraz. The time we have was the last one left when we called on Saturday. These tours now book up sometimes weeks in advance. We are finding that anything we want to do requires some research and a couple calls to ensure it is not booked up. When we get to the pier, I park while Wendy finds a spot of grab a bite to eat. She finds a spot called Butterfly which is a higher end restaurant. The kids have all found something on the to-go menu, and I look quickly to see they have a $10 Kobe beef cheeseburger. Pretty upscale, but I opt for the snapper Po-boy and steak frites with garlic. I run over to the ticket window (passing 2 cafeterias on the way with hot dogs, hamburgers and pizza), grab the tickets and head back to the restaurant. The food is not ready yet, but no complaints from me. I head to the bar, grab a quick beer and wait. We then grab our food and decide to eat while in line as they are already getting ready to board.The food is incredible. This will be my seafood stop for San Francisco. I’m disappointed that we did not get to eat somewhere else, but we are on the go and the kids are tired each evening.
We board the boat for the short ride to the island. I stop at the bar for one more beer only to find out they only serve beer on the return trip. No beer for us prisoners going to Alcatraz, but when we are released we can enjoy.
Once on the island, we take in a short discussion from a ranger on some of the history and the dos and don’ts. We then head up the 130 feet vertical walk to the top to pick up headphones for the audio tour. We all decide to stick together on the audio tour and start and stop at the same time. This works well though out the trip, although the kids are a bit annoyed when Wendy or I want to stop to read some more of the information on the walls.
I am glad we had just watched Escape from Alcatraz as everything is fresh in the kids’ minds. They see all the spots that were featured in the film as well as many others. The most impactful was when they allowed us all to head to a solitary cell and closed the door for 30 seconds. As you listened to an ex-prisoner talk about what it was like and how he survived, you experienced the cold and dark of the cell. Charlotte mentioned that this would surely make anyone go insane after a very short time. The ranger said that many did, but it also kept the peace as no one wanted to chance time in the hole. We also walked outside and took in the yard where the prisoners got to spend some time if they earned it.
From the top of the wall there, you can see San Francisco in the background. Must have been very tough seeing the beautiful city while you know you are in the toughest prison in the system.Once we finish the tour, we hand in the headphones and notice we have 10 minutes until the next boat. It will be a 50 minute wait if we miss this one, so we high tail it to the dock and make it just in time.
Wendy, Georgia and I head to the top and look out over the back of the boat and take in the surroundings. Charlotte and Jackson were cold and just wanted to sit for a while, so headed inside. Once back at the dock, we all decide we are shot. Wendy has some laundry and food shopping. I need to start packing up the RV, so we head back to the RV Park for a quiet evening. Farewell San Francisco and I will be taking my heart with me along with the memories.