June 9th - Alcatraz

Today we are off to Alcatraz, we are booked onto the 11:30 boat so have to be at the wharf for 11am, it is about a 20 minute walk from the hotel to where we will catch the boat.

Slept a bit better last night, though Lisa still had a lot of trouble getting to sleep. For breakfast this morning we had the croissants that I picked up last night in our room.

The crossing takes about 15 minutes, then we are greeted by Ranger John, who gives everyone a pep talk on what to do and not to do on the island before you are allowed to head on up to the cell block. The visit to the island comes complete with use of an audio guide whilst in the cell block, it is very good, the narration being given by a mix of ex-cons and prison officers, all who ‘did time’ on the Rock. The guide takes you through the history of the prison, introduces some of it’s more famous inmates and gives you an insight into some of the escape attempts, including the one immortalised by Clint Eastwood, when in 1962 3 convicts did escape the Rock and the one in the 50s that led to the Alcatraz prison riots.

After we left the cell block Lisa and Baggage headed back down to the dock, I took a bit more time over the journey down as I wanted to snap a few more photos.

Before we left the UK my Mum described to me how when she had visited Alcatraz with my Dad a few years ago he had hated the place, he had not felt comfortable there and had been very happy to get back on the boat and head across the bay at the end of their visit. I had not felt the same way, though I can understand it, the place is very foreboding, you get a sense of what has gone before as you walk around and when you are in the cell block at times you can easily imagine the cons within their small confines, as though they had only popped out for a quick spell in the exercise yard, even though the place is in reality brimming with tourists.

We got a boat back across the bay at around 3pm and after a wander back up to the hotel, stopping off a couple of times along the way we decided to take a break before going out for dinner tonight.

For dinner we head to Girardelli Square, the plan is to eat a lighter tea and then go to the Girardelli Ice Cream parlour for an ice cream sundae. We find a nice little diner on one corner of the square and decide that will do us for supper, Lisa has a salad, I have popcorn shrimp and Baggage has popcorn chicken. When it comes Baggage and I split the shrimp and the chicken between us giving us each a bot of a mixture. As is always the case with American restaurant meals there is far too much food and we end up leaving large amounts of it in order to make room for our ice cream.

After the diner we head across to the ice cream parlour and Lisa and Baggage share a Cookie Sundae, I have a Cable Car. Both are way too big and extremely over indulgent.

From here we take a slow walk back to the hotel and catch up on a few things before going to bed. We turn in at about 10:30, again a very late night for Baggage, but quite early for us.