Alcatraz still houses the prison cells that most people imagine when they think of the island. In addition to that, there are still remnants of the 19-month takeover by Native Americans in 1969-70, done in protest to civil rights violations by the US government against native people. There’s a lot of crumbling remnants and souvenirs of struggle and misery everyplace you look on Alcatraz.
The thing that you don’t expect is how many flowers and birds you’ll see. The island is actually managed by the national park service and you are greeted upon arrival by a park ranger who reminds you not to touch any of the natural things or take anything with you. There are the eerie remnants of its former life tucked into the signs of nature retaking the space. It’s actually pretty cool.
Cas and I did a tour with a pre-recorded audio file narrated by former wardens and inmates. It was very well done, in fact. The tour took longer than we suspected it would, but we couldn’t just switch it off and walk away- it was really interesting.
The cells were really small, and the doors to get in were not too far above my head. I come in at at just under 5’5”, so I can assure you these are not tall doors. There were a few we could walk into, and we were invited to enter the solitary confinement cells, as well. I have to say, a field trip there as children may have been a proper deterrent to the adults who wound up spending their best years inside those walls.
After that journey, we found the entrance point for the hop-on-hop-off bus company. They had promised that, with the tour we booked, we would be able to do a walking tour of Chinatown at 1pm, and we were trying to hustle to get there. So, it turns out they don’t do the walking tour of Chinatown anymore. Meh. It’s okay, though- we were feeling a little pressed for time, and that deletion gave us room to operate at a more casual pace.
And by casual pace, I mean we did a two hour loop of listening and learning on the hop-on-hop-off bus. We just didn’t hop off. The route it takes is really, really long. It goes all around what turns out to be a pretty big city, then across the Golden Gate Bridge, then back again and into more of the city. Whew. I have to say, if it’s at all chilly out, and you’re on an open-top bus, you may consider stepping to the enclosed portion for the trip across the water. We were fine, but we’re typically pretty hearty when it comes to chilly air.
Today’s bus tour also let us see what we want to visit in earnest tomorrow. We have decided that, after the Exploratorium trip we have booked, we want to head to Chinatown for lunch, then check out Haight-Ashbury and the surrounding neighborhood. San Francisco is the home of the first Chinatown in America, if the tour info is to be believed. And no place I know of has a hippie neighborhood so storied and well-developed. Most of the other stuff- shopping, entertainment district, etc., exist pretty much anywhere. We believe we’ve singled out the best, most uniquely San Francisco things.
The last thing we did today was a sunset cruise. It had to be. No way we don’t do that with the sun setting behind the Golden Gate Bridge. The boat that we cruised on reminded us of two others from our summer. It seemed to be eerily similar to the boat from the architecture tour in Chicago and the one from the Circle Line Cruise in New York. We stopped off on the way to the pier to have a glass of wine, then we were off on our one and a half hour sunset cruise. It was great. We went past Alcatraz and under the Golden Gate Bridge. It was interesting, as we had been on both of those things at different points in the day, and now, we were sailing near or under them. Still, very cool.
After that, we headed to the place where we had the pre-trip glass of wine. It was called the Chowder Hut and having not made dinner plans just yet, we took them up on their signature dish. Not sure how to San Francisco any harder than to eat two different kinds of chowder out of bowls made of sourdough bread. It was pretty amazing.
As for now, we’re in for the evening. It’s been a pretty full day, and we have big plans for tomorrow.
Here are our photos again- see you soon!
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