Welcome to the Rock.

Thursday 10/18/2017 started early for me.  I was up and awake at 6.  I head to the fitness center for a quick workout.  I came back to the room and everyone was still sleeping so I showered and went on a little walk down Market street.  In cities like San Francisco, I find myself wondering where are all these people going, the mass of humanity moving about the city on a daily basis is staggering.  

The lounge at The Palace hotel.  Amazing !!! The picture doesn’t do it justice

When I returned everyone was up and ready to roll.  A quick stop at Peet’s Coffee satisfied everyone’s needs for Moccas and Lattes.

The Anseth family then attempted to ride SF public transportation.  There was a lot of frustration as we tried to correctly identify the F train that would take us to pier 33 for our Alcatraz ferry.  Kari was nervous, Ashley was annoyed, Katie looked around randomly, Grace cried and I kept checking my watch, convinced we were going to miss the ferry. 

Ultimately, we squeezed into the F train after some help from the locals.  We were packed tight but we did manage to make it to the ferry.

Alcatraz is a fascinating place.   The name comes from Old Spainish which means weird birds?  That is from the ranger so you may want to google fact check that.  It was a military base to protect the port of San Francisco and finally became the last stop in the federal prison system.  It is beautiful, rugged and forbidding all at the same time.

Heading to the Rock

The Rock in B&W 

The light was not good in the City by the Bay so the majority of the Alcatraz photos will be posted in B&W.

The Bay Bridge

The City by the Bay

After departing the ferry we listened to the Ranger in the dock discuss the history of Alcatraz before it was a prison and its significance in protecting the port of San Francisco.  We also learned the San Francisco Bay was discovered by a land expedition not a sailing expedition because of how dangerous the currents are at the entrance and because of how the fog shrouded it in secrecy.

We headed up to the jailhouse to take a self guide audio tour which is narrated by former guards and prisoners.

The prison from the outside

The girls on the way up to the prison.

Three tiers of cells on Main Street

Typical cell for an inmate.  

Looking out into the yard.  Exercise privileges were a big reward for good behavior.  Ball field at the far end.  Bridge was a big game among the inmates too.

The cells on C-D Street.  This was the wing we’re they kept the guys that were real trouble.  

Hopefully you can enlarge this but from left to right

Alfonso “Scarface” Capone — Tax Evasion.  Mr. Capone supposedly died of Syphyllis.

George Machine Gun Kelly— Kidnapping

Arthur “Doc” Baker—-Kidnapping

Alvin “Creepy Karpis Karpavice—-Kidnapping.  Everyone thought he was creepy.  Walked on his toes

Robert “The Birdman” Stroud—Murder.  Brilliant guy complete sociopath. Probably the most dangerous person on the Rock.

Ellsworth “Bumpy” Johnson—-Narcotics.  Main gangster in Harlem.  Frank Lucas was his driver.  He went on to become a huge drug trafficker in NYC.  See American Gangster.

Meyer “Mikey” Cohen——Tax Evasion

Ashley Anseth—-???????

Katie Anseth——???????

Grace Anseth——assault 

Katie and the G-Money gangster in front of the solitaire confinement cells.  See you on Sunday morning girls.  Ashley was smart enough to smell what was cooking on the Rock and escape

The view from inside the hole. If you did get sent to the hole.  A fun game you could play was to pop a button off your shirt, toss it in the air, listen for it to land, search for it in the dark till you found it and then repeat.

The visitation area from the prisoners side

All the way down Main Street towards Time Square and the Dinning hall.  

Out through the administrative office by the warden’s home looking back at SF

One for time for good measure

Remains of the warden’s house and Lighthouse 

The dining hall.  Maybe the most dangerous place on the Rock because the inmates had metal utinsels.  Tear gas canisters are mounted around the room from the ceiling.  Once the prisoners flipped all the tables over in protest of bad spaghetti.  One of the guards shot out 3 windows with his Thompson submachine gun, which restored order and then marched the inmates out.  All of that could have been avoided with Grandma Eleanor’s spaghetti sauce recipe.

Two major escape attempts were discussed.  One in which a bar spreader was used to gain access to the gun gallery where the guards were over powered.  It led to one of prisoners shooting the guards they had locked up in a cell.  Ultimately, the marines were sent in and you can still see areas where grenades hit the floor.  The other attempt involved fake heads, enlarging the vent to your cell then climbing the pipes up the utility walkway to the roof.  The inmates made it over the fence and they only needed to make the 1.5 mile swim to shore.  They were never found.  Some think they made it and head to South America, many think they drowned in the 54 degree water.

The girls escaping the prison.

Good by to the Rock.

We stopped for lunch at the Chart House and Grace ate a Crepe.  We ended up just making it for our bus tour to Muir Woods.  Our charter driver was great we drove by OJ Simpson’s old high school, down Van Neyes which was dynamited to save the city from being completely destroyed by a fire and over the Golden Gate Bridge.  

Muir Woods and girls.  Lord help everyone else in here

Muir Woods is names for John Muir a famous naturalist and founding member of the Sierra Club.  A beautiful old coastal redwood forest. Generally quite and peaceful except when these 3 savages are here.

This tree sprouted in 909 AD and fell in 1930.

So peaceful and well behaved????

Looking up in B&W

Nut Jobs in a tree

Whoa!!!

We fit in these trees

We can climb

Here a kick and punch in your peacefully walk through the woods face.

Shortly after this we were asked to leave. Or maybe we just had to leave to make the shuttle.  I love Muir Woods, the quiet, smell of Redwoods the light through the trees.

Driving back over the Golden Gate Bridge we saw a fender bender accident which made Grace so nervous she went and sat by her Mom.

Golden Gate Bridge from the Bus.

Back in the City we stopped at.....

Yes, Ghirardelli Square the original Home of the San Francisco chocolate maker.  This machine is massaging the chocolate to aerate it.  If you follow this blog you know we are continuing our extensive evaluation and investigation into chocolate.  See Belize and Switzerland 🇨🇭 post.

Grace don’t put your tongue 👅 on that!!!!

After Ghirardelli Square it was back to hotel via the F train.  We changed and finished with dinner at a Spanish place down on the Embarcadero, Coqueta.  We had a great dinner

Grilled Octopus 🐙.  Ashley and Katie even tried it.

Finally, bed.  Tomorrow we take on Silicon Valley.