Family Vacation, Part 3 - San Francisco

Okay... it's 10:00 already, but I'm gonna try to blog about yesterday...

Yesterday was the San Francisco day and it was a blast! The kids woke up as usual... Sam was up early, rarin' to go (and trying on Dad's glasses--he reminds me of Dan Hendricks in this picture!)...




While Katie and Joe looked like this... Ha!

We had a two or three hour drive north to get to San Francisco and there was a lot of great scenery along the way. You can't tell from this picture (there never was a great place to pull over and take a picture without somebody getting hurt, so it was taken on the fly and I couldn't get a good angle), but there were THOUSANDS of windmills all over the hillsides for a few miles--I've seen bunches of them before, but never anything like this. It was amazing!
We drove through Oakland without incident, then crossed the Bay Bridge to get into San Francisco...
Once there we found a parking lot ($15 to park in that city--crazy, hu?!), then walked quite a ways down to Pier 33 where the Alcatraz tour departed from. That was on the list of things I REALLY wanted to do in this city. I've always been intrigued by that place and thought it would be so novel to actually see it. And to be able to GO to it--how cool is that?!

We got in the very long line of people waiting to purchase tickets to ride the boat out there and take the tour. I was really wishing we had reserved tickets online ahead of time because it was looking like we'd be just standing in line, then standing and waiting for the boat for at least two hours, maybe longer. We had been there for all of about 5 minutes when a lady walked up to us and asked how many were in our party. We told her there were five of us and she whipped out some tickets for the 12:00 trip and handed them to us. Our jaws dropped and we couldn't even figure out what to say--we were so dumbfounded! She said, "Come on! They're boarding RIGHT NOW--we've got to hurry!" Ha! IS THAT COOL, OR WHAT?! I felt like we were Sam & Tammy Kaufman!!!!! Ha! That kind of stuff never happens to us. It was fantastic. We finally got our wits about us enough to thank the woman, then found her later on while on the boat and thanked her PROFUSELY. Apparently she had purchased a bunch of tickets for whatever company she works for (for the employees to take the tour). "I didn't have an exact head count so I had to just estimate, and we ended up having 6 extra tickets." She said she went in search of a nice looking family to bestow them upon and found us. :-) This was soooooo cool (it was even ordained of God, as I'll explain later) because aside from paying entrance fees to get into the National Parks where necessary, Alcatraz was the one and only thing we were planning on spending any real money on during this trip. The tickets were $26 per adult and slightly less for kids--though the lady had all adult tickets. That means she handed us $130 worth of tickets!!! WHOA! Anyway...

Here's the fam on the boat ride out there, with the Bay Bridge in the background.

And James as we're nearing the Rock--see it?
Still standing on the deck of the boat with the staff housing building behind me.
There were some amazing flowers on Alcatraz--who knew?!

We took the cell house audio tour and it was soooooo amazing! You wear headphones and carry a little player that you can start and stop as you please. It is narrated by four former prison guards and four former inmates and it is totally FASCINATING. It took an hour or more, but it was just soooooo interesting and informative--while you're walking through and SEEING everything they're talking about. When we got to the dining hall there was a guy there giving a talk on Al Capone so we turned our headphones off and sat and listened for quite a while. He was a really great story teller and that, too, was just so interesting--and even funny. Capone was on Alcatraz for four and a half years. He was a "regular" prisoner for the first year and a half, then started acting very strange. He couldn't answer simple questions and couldn't find his own cell when he was standing right in front of it--stuff like that. He spent the remaining 3 years of his time there in the hospital on the island. He was diagnosed with something that a doctor had thought he had as a child--some sort of brain disease. He got worse and worse while on the island, banging his head into the wall and such. But just after he was released from prison his boys made another "hit" on a rival gangster, leaving everybody wondering if he was really sick or if he'd just been faking all that time to have things easier than living in the normal cells and hoping to get out earlier--which he did. Hhmmmm...

Anyway, this is what the cells looked like. 5' wide, 8' long, 7' high. A cot, a "chair and desk," a sink, and a toilet (behind the cot). WOW.

"You break the rules, you go to prison. You break the prison rules, you go to Alcatraz." Here are some of the most notorious prisoners to grace the island...
This is what they could see every day... Freedom, just on the other side of the bay. They said that sometimes (especially on nights like New Year's Eve) they could actually hear voices and laughter coming from the city.
This was the control center
Oh, now THIS was cool. Lots of guys tried to escape from the island over the years, all of them were either shot, captured, or drowned before they made it across the bay. But there were these two guys... They used SPOONS to carve out the cement around the vents in their rooms to make them just large enough for them to be able to crawl through. When the guards came through the corridor in the morning they couldn't wake the two guys up. They saw them in their beds, but couldn't get them to stir. When they finally opened the cells they found the beds stuffed to look like bodies, complete with heads made of soap and painted, and hair that had been gathered from the floor the guys had been sweeping for the island barber. After making it through the vent holes, they managed to climb up through the pipes going through the center of the building and then... nobody knows because they were never found. They may have made it, they may have drowned--but they're bodies were never found. Very cool stuff. :-)



Here are the boys, on THE ROCK. :-) That's the tour boat coming back to dump all of those passengers off on the island and take us back to the mainland.
And the watch tower. Cool stairs, hu?
As we were just pulling away from the island Joe and I spotted something out in the water, but it was too far away to tell what it was. Joe thought it was an eel, but it seemed to bulky for that. My first thought was maybe an otter--but I figured it had to be at least 6 feet long and that would be a mighty big otter. Ha! I was able to zoom way in with the camera and when we looked at the pictures later on we discovered that it was either a seal or a sea lion, lookin' right at us. :-) HOW FUN!!!
Pulling away from Alcatraz, with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background.
The view of San Francisco from somewhere out in the bay.
By the time we got back to the city we were starved--we had left on the 12:00 boat and were gone for two hours or more. We walked down to Fisherman's Wharf, which is a really, really neat nook (very large nook) of stores and shops and restaurants of all kinds...
Undoubtedly the best shop of them all was this one. :-) They had the greatest selection of socks I've ever seen and if they hadn't been $8 a pair I'm sure I would have bought some. Ha!

We ended up here for lunch...
...so we could try the clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl. YUM!!! They claim to be the first people to come up with the bread bowl thing.
Farther down in Fisherman's Wharf was this double-decker Carousel that James let the kids ride. We'd never seen one with an upstairs before! :-)
There was super fresh and tasty looking fruit for sale. Though the only fruit we bought was the giant white chocolate covered strawberry James bought for me! :-)
This pirate dude put on a pretty cool street show. We usually don't even stop at things like that, but he was actually decently funny and entertaining and didn't say anything CRUDE (one of my very biggest pet peeves!), so it was great. The kids loved it.
After we had finished our meal and seen all we wanted to see at the Wharf it was time to find a trolley car. Simply because we were in San Francisco and it seemed like the thing to do! This was the one we ended up on.
They ride on tracks just like trains (but on the roads right along with all the cars) and are powered by these cables up above that they stay hooked up to all the time. It's amazing! Speaking of amazing, check out those palm trees! I always thought the palm trees in Arizona were neat. That's because I'd never seen these ones before. The other ones look sort of sick and puny to me now. Ha! And there were some that were even more full and beautiful than these.
The trolley ride was about an hour long and took us through downtown and the business district and who knows where else. We were just along for the ride. Believe it or not, this picture is NOT of one of the busy or impressive streets. Some of the buildings were HUGE--and so close together. And people--oh, the mobs of people!!! It reminded me of the pictures I've seen of thousands of people walking down the sidewalks in Tokyo. I felt like I saw more people in that one hour than I've seen in the past year!
THIS was truly novel to me. Do you see what it is??? A PAY TOILET!!!!! Who knew?! I remember Johnny talking about them years ago, but I don't guess I knew that they actually existed. Bizarre.
Here's Miss Rue enjoying the ride.
And just one of the MANY very interested characters who got on and off the car while we were riding. This dude was talking on his phone and was practically yelling to whoever was on the other end--and using LOTS of hand guestures that I'm sure were a great help in making himself clear. :-)
I must say that riding the trolley car was enlightening. We not only saw parts of the city that we never would have dared to drive ourselves (ha!), but on the car it was sort of like a civilization all it's own. Most people were very happy and friendly, though several of them were very strange and a few a bit scary. But I was amazed that the driver--in this HUGE city--actually KNEW some of the passengers! I guess some people take the trolley every day from point A to point B at a certain time and they end up on the same car with the same driver. She knew some of them by name and here--in the middle of San Francisco--it felt like you were sitting in a cafe in a little rinky-dink town in Wyoming. They chit-chatted just like that and talked about the weather and argued about politics and the whole nine yards! I found that absolutely captivating.

This is what Sam looked like toward the end of the trip. It had been a long day and we'd done a LOT of walking and it was late afternoon by this time--guess it all caught up with him.

We got off the trolley and made our way back to the van. Instead of taking the most direct route, I had James take a detour through town so he could drive me the length of Lombard Street. :-) That's about the only other thing (aside from Alcatraz and trolleys!) that I know about San Francisco--thanks to Bill Cosby, I think. Anyway, it is truly amazing. Pictures can't begin to show how STEEP the hills are on that road. It really and truly felt like you were going on a real slow roller coaster!
The whole time we were there enjoying ourselves and taking in the sights and being so fascinated by everything I just kept thinking, "This is sooooooo cool to see... but how do people LIVE here?!" Ha! I would go NUTS. I've always known I'm not a city person, but I feel even more passionately about it now. Everything is so TALL and just CRAMMED in together and there's so much business and MOTION and noise and... ~whew~ By the end of the trolley ride I'd had about all I could take and I was ready to blow that joint! Ha!

So... Last on the list of things that must be done in San Francisco was seeing the Golden Gate Bridge up close. That was easy enough since we had to cross it en route to Highway 1. :-)

I've seen pictures of it all my life and never really thought much about it. But while actually DRIVING across it I kept thinking how cool it was--how beautiful this bridge was in comparison to all the others I've been on. It just looks and feels so different somehow--maybe because it's so OPEN feeling without the usual metal mess criss-crossing up above you. I don't know, but it was cool!
Since Sam only woke up enough after the trolley ride to walk himself back to the van (because he had no choice) and quickly fell asleep again, this picture is of James and most of our children instead of all. (Don't worry--the van was right behind me. We didn't leave Sam all alone!)
We left San Francisco and headed north on Highway 1, also known as "The One" around here. It's the road that leads you along the coastline for couple hundred miles north of there--and a few hundred south of there as well. So as evening aproached we caught our first glipse of the Pacific Ocean. (It was our first glimpse because we were so busy looking AT the Golden Gate Bridge while we crossed it that we never even glanced to the left (the ocean) or the right (San Francisco Bay again) the whole time! Ha!) Anyway, I thought this picture particularly pretty.
A word of advice for anybody thinking about making a trip like this. (Listen up, Sister Tammy! Ha!) Don't miss Alcatraz--it is THE COOLEST thing to see while there. Make sure you take that audio tour--it makes the whole trip worthwhile. Secondly, DON'T head up Highway 1 without specific plans of how far you're going, where you're going to get gas, and where you're going to stay! The road is sooooo pretty, even from the very beginning, but it is VERY steep and it is about the windiest (is that a word?!) road I've ever been on. Reminds me a little of the road heading into Ouray, Colorado, Mom. There are LONG stretches of it where there are no gas stations or motels, even if there are towns listed on the map.

We ended up on a little place called Olema. We were looking at either driving an hour back to San Francisco (and however cool it is, who wants to actually STAY there?! Ha!) or an hour or two ahead to find a room to stay in and we were sooooo tired after the long day. We found a cute little cottage sort of hotel and James went in to check the prices. $299 a night!!!!! COULD YOU DIE?!?!? We almost did!!!!! Are these people INSANE?! The only other choice was across the street, the Olema Inn & Restaurant. James sent me in to check the price on that one. So my dirty, tired, windblown self walked in looking every bit as terrible as I felt, probably worse. The desk was right next to the restaurant where I could see wine bottles galore and lots of fancy-schmancy tables with cloth napkins and crystal goblets and all that jazz. A lady in a starched uniform approached me and asked if she could help me. "Are you looking for the local thrift store, Ma'am?" No, that's not what she said--but she may have thought it. ;-) I asked her if they had any rooms available and what the rates were. She said she had one room left--the very best one--and it was usually $199 a night, but she'd let me have it for $150. (Are you getting this?! $150 for a MOTEL ROOM--for ONE NIGHT!!!) I put on my most pitiful look (I had such a headstart already I'm sure it came quite naturally) and pleaded, "Is there any way you can do better than $150?" She said she would do $120 if we skipped breakfast. I know this sounds insane, but we jumped at it. Generally it would turn my stomach (actually I think I did have that reaction...) to think of paying such a price, but what were we to do?! James agreed and as he was inside paying for it, it occurred to me... God had that lady GIVE us those tickets to Alcatraz worth $130 (our motel room cost with tax) earlier in the day because He KNEW we'd end up in this crazy place with outrageous room prices! IS THAT JUST SO AMAZING?! He is soooooo good to us!!! We were planning on dishing out the dough for Alcatraz--the one thing that we REALLY wanted to do in the city. So I told James to look at it as if we paid for Alcatraz just like we'd planned and we got a super expensive motel room for free! It just FEELS better that way instead of admitting we paid that kind of money for a room. Ha! Anyway, here's a picture of it...

That was pretty much it! It was a small room, one bed (the kids slept on the floor) and although it had nice furnishings the carpet had several stains and was definitely NOT a $120 room (as if there is such a thing) and ABSOLUTELY not a $199 room. That's what we thought until James started looking up real estate info in Olema. That inn and restaurant (that would sell for $100,000 to $200,000 in most areas, maybe $300,000 in others) is worth about FIVE MILLION DOLLARS. ~whew~ CRAZY. People are just CRAZY.

We had a hard time finding food, so we ended up getting some pizza slices for the kids and some sub sandwiches for ourselves from a deli and taking it back to our fancy motel and sitting on the already stained floor to eat our dinner at 8:00 or 9:00. More great memories, that's what it is! And that was about it. A long day, but a GREAT day. :-)