March 17-20th Chris and I took a weekend trip to San Francisco. It was planned only about a month in advance because I was randomly looking at tickets and found some for super cheap, plus I had some free rooms from hotels.com, so we found a time that the grandparents could watch the kids and off we went. I was super anxious, nervous, and excited. The thought of leaving my kids stressed me out but being with my husband for a long weekend was quite nice. We got in late Thursday afternoon and by the time we got to our hotel, we decided it was time to head out to find a place to eat dinner. First stop was the hotel lobby where they served wine from 5-6PM. Chris and I played a game of checkers and I DOMINATED him, not once but twice. It was a good start to the evening.
Here is our cute little hotel
and our view from near the hotel.
Looking back from the pier to the hotel.
We continued on our journey and walked to Pier 39 which was touristy. We ate some dinner, checked out some shops, got a view of Alcatraz, and watched the seals. Then we walked back to the hotel and this was the view of the Bay Bridge. It was awesome.
That night we realized that Alcatraz tickets were sold out until the end of March! I was distraught and couldn't believe I didn't think to get tickets when I booked our trip. So we did a little research and found that they have stand-by tickets but you had to arrive quite early. We showed up around 9:00 am and asked what time we should arrive the next day to find out when we should arrive to get stand-by tickets and the lady said she had a couple left for the night tour. So we jumped on the purchase and continued on with our day with the plan to come back in the evening for the night tour.
We had to go see our seal friends during the day.
Alcatraz from the Pier
Then we rented some bikes and decided to bike across the Golden Gate Bridge.
On our way!
Getting closer
Pit stop for a snack and bathroom break.
Here we go!
Chris being silly
The view was AMAZING!
Looking over to Sausalito
By biking partner
We ended up biking about 11 miles total. Once we got to Sausalito we ate lunch and then we were going to bike to a park with some redwood trees but as we started biking we realized that our butts hurt too much for that! So we turned around, got some ice cream, and waited for our ferry. Biking across the bridge and spending the day with Chris was by far my favorite part of our trip.
Alcatraz from the ferry ride.
When we got back to San Francisco we returned our bikes and went to wait to see if we could catch ferry to Alcatraz. They told us to be there at 5:30PM even though tickets were for 6:30PM. They guy taking tickets was great and let us jump on the earlier tour. The night tour was awesome.
Alcatraz is not well kept so it was pretty easy to imagine life as a prisoner there. Here is the look out tower a guard was posted in for a 24 hr shift in (there is a toilet in the tower).
Graffiti from the Indian Occupation of Alcatraz in 1969
Entrance
Prison cells
It was very tight living quarters
The view of the city from Alcatraz was amazing
Audio touring
Cell of one of the prisoners that escaped by widening the vent-hole in the wall by scraping the edges with a spoon!
On the night tour they opened up the hospital which was very interesting and creepy all at the same time.
It was a very good tour and they had some really neat talks that we listened to before we caught the ferry back. By the time we got back to our hotel room we crashed! It was a long but amazing day together.
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