Day Seventy-eight: Escaping to Alcatraz

Some of, well, most of my guests hadn't seen Alcatraz up close and personal. So, we did the tour. It required every bit as much meticulous planning as an escape would have, but not as much work. First I had to drop my son and daughter-in-law off at the airport, then my daughter off at a BART station, then race home to participate in the conveyance caravan back to the San Francisco piers. To shake things up and take what I thought was a faster route, I took I-280 into King Street, which turned into Embarcadero. Whether it was or not, we got there in plenty of time to stand around, waiting to stand around.

The official standing around was just a little over a half an hour. This gave them time to take our picture, well, everybody's picture, which was why we had to stand around in the zig zagging people mover line for so long.

On the trip over we raced up to the top deck so we could stand in the wind and see all the sights. One of them was a gull who was floating on the wind, and keeping up with the ferry. After a number of pictures, one of my sisters through a cracker up in the air. The gull caught it mid-air.

Then came Alcatraz. It hadn't changed much from the previous three times I had been there. I do think that the audio tour of the cell house used to be a separate price, which explains why I hadn't done that before. (All of my previous trips were with Marilyn and she wouldn't have wanted such extras.) In any regard, all the walking resulted in everyone of us riding the ferry back on the lowest level. It may have been the food and drinks that were being sold on that level, but while some of us had stood on the way over, including me, all of sat on the way back.

After Alcatraz, our party split up with half of us walking by Pier 39, yes the same pier that we had all seen the day before, and half staying at Pier 39 for more shopping. I was in the half that walked by so I can't really tell you what exciting shopping events happened. The reason my group walked by was my middle sister, the one who wouldn't drive down the crookedest street in the world, wanted to walk it as part of her effort to walk another ten miles. Yes, she wears a pedometer everywhere. Since Lombard was only ten or so blocks away, she didn't get much added to her total mileage. Since it was up and down, like Alcatraz, it took a decent amount of effort so we all got our exercise. It was another first for me as I was walking up and down Lombard for my first time. Firsts are coming with more effort as I get older in this Life after Layoff.

After eating Thai for a really late lunch, we made it back to Pier 39 to pick up our shopping half, who wisely had eaten before they shopped so they didn't drop, and walked the six piers back to our cars. The drive home was uneventful but long as we were doing it in rush hour. (Rush hour consists of not rushing for far longer than an hour so it must have been named that as a joke.)

We did not stay up to watch The Daily Show or the Colbert Report but delightedly went to bed, everyone of us.