Day 10 - Travel to San Francisco and Alcatraz

On Friday, July 1st, we left out of LA to make the 6 hour drive north to San Francisco.  We had hoped to take the Pacific Coast Highway but were under a time constraint and had to be checked in and at Pier 33 in San Francisco for the Alcatraz Tour.  This was a little side trip that Tammy was looking forward to and at one point we did not know if we would make it.  So, I put the hammer down and we made it into San Fran with 45 minutes to spare.  The temperature in LA and throughout most of the drive was in the mid to upper 90s.  When you get in to the Bay area, the temps begin to drop quickly.  When we arrived at our hotel near the Fisherman's Wharf, the temperature was in the 60s.  It is a different climate in Northern California in the Bay area for sure.

So we get checked in and put on sweatshirts and sweatpants!  We get to the pier and get on the boat for the Alcatraz tour.  "The Rock" as it was known was a federal prison for nearly 30 years and housed such notorious criminals as Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and Robert Stroud, "The Bird Man of Alcatraz", to name a few.  The tour was very informative although most of the tour was about the Native American takeover of Alcatraz from 1969-1971, but by that time the prison was shut down.  It is/was a very remote, dreary, and desolate location.  It was kind of neat to get to see what some people had to experience.

Our view of "The Rock" from the boat.

At the landing, you can see the effects of the takeover of Alcatraz by Native Americans in 1971.

Picture of bars on windows.  This would be areas where inmates would work or eat.  They did not have windows in the cells.

The recreation yard where inmates to go outside.

After the Alcatraz tour, we went down to Pier 39 and ate supper at Bubba Gump's (which was where Tate wanted to go).  Then we headed back to our room to get ready for a 1:00 game the next day.