Alcatraz

I am so far behind with the blog!  It drives me crazy when I get behind. We did have Internet on our trip, but it was pretty slow.  I wish I would have at least written something in Word because my memory is horrible.  I also wish I would have forced myself to blog anyway.  My dad took a ton of pictures for me.  As most of my family knows, counting on my dad for pictures is a bad idea.  He has the worst luck with cameras!  Especially on vacation.  Anyway, here it goes.

We bought tickets to go to Alcatraz early this morning.  We bought them a long time ago because we heard they sell out quickly.  That was true.  We also decided to go early Monday morning so Mike could go with us.  He ended up swinging by to pick up his badge today, but he will be at his conference most of the day for the next couple of days. Our plan was to take the bus to the BART to the Muni.  We had it all printed and figured out.  We left in plenty of time to get the bus.  As we were walking, we saw the bus was already there!  Yikes!  We ran to it and was able to catch it Amazing Race style.  We talked for awhile with someone on the bus.  After about twenty minutes he asked us where we were going.  When we told him Alcatraz he informed us we went the wrong way!  Also, Amazing Race style.  We would be the team that got on the bus and the camera man would pan up to the final destination. The bus number was the same as the one we wanted, it just went away from the city instead of towards it.  Well, we knew there was no way we would be able to make it to our scheduled 8:45 trip taking public transportation.  Mike called a taxi and we payed a lot of money to get us there.  We found out when we arrived that this particular taxi only accepted cash.  Luckily we were able to get the rest of the fare from Dad.  Live and learn.

I'm glad we were able to make it.  The tickets were non-refundable and I really enjoyed the tour.  It was pretty windy and cold this morning.  I was so glad I brought the kids jackets!  

They have an audio tour on the island.  It is really neat.  It makes it so you can see the different things without having to peer around other people.  That is very helpful for a short family!  These are the prison showers.  That does not look fun at all!

Preston got a little off on his audio tour.  He paused his tour in order to take this picture while I just left mine running.  It frustrated him until I figured out what had happened.  I paused mine and waited to sink up to Preston's.  We finished the tour a little behind the rest of our group. It was fun being with Preston.  He is so cute!  He kept nodding while he was listening, then he would look at me and say, "That's nice!"  At the end he told me that it was really nice that the prisoners had a library and could paint and play baseball.

Preston and Stephanie at Alcatraz

This is one of the rooms that a prisoner escaped from.  They made fake heads and had carved through the walls with spoons.

Squinty Preston next to a fake head

 Leaving Alcatraz

Jorja, Maysen, Preston, Stephanie, Mike, Stockton

 This time with Preston's eyes open

 Stephanie with her dad

 Stockton with his grandpa

 Jorja with her grandpa

 Preston

It's weird how you can always see Alcatraz in the distance.  I never knew that about San Francisco.  This isn't the best picture, but just trust me.

After lunch we went to the Ripley's Believe It or Not museum.  This ended up being the boy's favorite part of the trip.  That and the 7D movie.  I didn't know what to expect, but we had a good time and few pictures.

At the beginning there is a wax statue of someone from Villa Rica, Georgia that could swallow their nose.  Basically they could get their bottom lip over their nose.  Of course that really stood out when we saw he was from Villa Rica!  A little later there is a video of him doing it. Part of the video has different challenges to see if you can do.  Twisting your tongue, folding your tongue, things like that. There is a mirror you can look in to see if you are doing it right.  Later in the museum you come to some videos that you can slow down and speed up.  Like a dog shaking water off of himself, flowers blooming.  You can also find a video of yourself pulling faces.  Oh man!  We laughed so hard!  Later we came to a mirror.  There was a video at the top saying, "Remember this?"  It had the video of the tongue challenges.  We could now see through the mirror we looked in!  Holy cow was that funny!  We stayed there for a long time watching people make faces.  Hilarious!

Random Stranger

At the end of the museum we went into a mirror maze.  Preston LOVED it!  That was a lot of fun.  Our next stop was to Ghirardelli Square.  I was looking forward to this!

We saw Larkin Street on the way

My family was not as excited about this as I was.  They didn't even want to get the giant family ice-cream to share!  (Don't worry, I made them go back.)  My kids love ice-cream, but they are definitely not my brothers!

Stockton, Maysen, Preston, Jorja, Stephanie, Mike

 Isn't my Porge beautiful?

My other kids are too, but they weren't cooperating with my picture taking.  Jorja started to get bored after awhile.  At least she still let me take her picture!  On a side note, I am loving her contacts!  I love to see her face again without her glasses in the way.

 Preston loved to fit in random holes.

We headed down to Fisherman's Wharf to watch a 7D movie.  We picked the Banditos movie.  It was great!  We got to try and shoot robots as we were on some kind of mine cart ride.  It really felt like we were riding it.  At the end of the movie, Mike's picture popped up with 1st place!  Stockton was 2nd.  I wish I got my camera out to take that picture.  Preston's picture popped up as last place.  He was so cute, this tiny boy sitting in this big chair.  As we left the theater, Mike was 4th place on the Best Players of the Day board.  Stockton thought that was great!

The kids were a little tired of walking by now, but we still made them walk the two miles to the BART station.  Preston's legs were so sore until he saw these random statue-like things that were everywhere.  He decided they were telephones.  He jumped in every one and said, "Ring-ring-ring-ring-ring!"  Every single one.  There were a lot.  We finally walked by the last one.  My dad and I looked at each other and said, "Thank goodness!"  We were wrong.  A few blocks up they had about nine of them in one place.  He had to go in every single one.  I can't believe I don't have a picture.  I bet my dad took one.  Too bad we'll never see it!

Jorja

 Preston

These O pictures are outside the Exploratorium.  We never went inside. I wanted to, but we never got around to it.  They have a pitch dark maze that sounds like fun.  The maze had closed for the day when we walked by.  Things tend to close early around here!

Preston

 Stockton

 Jorja

 Maysen

Mike left us at the BART station so he could pick up his badge and registration stuff.  My dad and I managed to get back to the motorhome just fine.  It was easier than I anticipated.  The sun looked beautiful as it was setting.  What a fantastic day!