San Francisco-Day 2 Morning-Alcatraz

Before we left for San Francisco, Jonathan reserved tickets for us to visit Alcatraz. I guess that tickets can be hard to come by and when he’d checked earlier, none were available. But the day before we left he was able to get us two for the 8:45am departure on Sunday morning.

We were up early anyway since our bodies hadn’t fully adjusted to the time change, grabbed some granola bars, and caught a bus out to Pier 33. Promptly at 8:45 we were on our way over to The Rock on a ferry with a couple hundred other people.

On the ferry

Alcatraz

Once we were there, they gathered us all up just off the boat to give us a quick orientation talk. We found out that there was a Garden Tour starting at 9:30am, so we watched a bit of the video about the island then met up for the tour.

Orientation talk

This is Marnie, the guide for the Garden Tour. She was great. I think the tour was only supposed to be about 45 minutes long and it ended up being over an hour. It provided a completely different look at Alcatraz than what I had imagined. Volunteers are reconstructing the gardens based on pictures from the 1950s and 1960s. Much had just grown wild since then.

One of the reconstructed flower gardens. They have to bring all of the water over from the main land and it won’t rain again there until October they said.

The water tour was refurbished, but they recreated the graffiti from the Native American occupation of the island. I didn’t know that part of the history of Alcatraz at all.

One of the best parts of the tour was getting to go through some of the closed areas. The views were just stunning.

One of the reasons for all of the flowers was so that when the residents of San Francisco looked out across the bay and saw Alcatraz, they didn’t just see a prison, they at least saw something that was aesthetically pleasing. Some of the gardens were kept by the wives of the prison guards and some were kept by the prisoners themselves.

A view of the Golden Gate bridge

The Cell House

One of the watchtowers

The recreation yard

At the top of the stairs leading into the cell house and looking out on the recreation yard

When the Garden Tour was over, we headed inside for the cell house audio tour. The audio tour was great. It kept us moving throughout the cell house and was narrated by both former guards and inmates. It was informative but also a tad bit chilling.

Three floors of cells

Inside one of the solitary confinement cells.

The library

What one of the cells might have looked like when an inmate occupied it. Apparently some of the inmates took up oil painting and crocheting to pass the time. Bridge was also a popular time-passer.

The front of the cell house

The view of San Francisco from just outside the administration building door.

In the dining room, which was one of the most dangerous places in the prison. The kitchen is just behind the bars.

After we finished the tour, we turned in our headsets and started back down the hill. Along the side of the cell house, we saw a family of geese.

We (barely) caught the 12:25pm ferry back to San Francisco.

Coit Tower and Telegraph Hill as we were docking at Pier 33.

San Francisco–Day 1

In mid-April, Jonathan headed to his office’s national conference and I was able to tag along again. This year’s conference was held in San Francisco. So a few Friday’s ago, we all packed up our bags and drove down to drop our kids off with my parents in Eustis. After a few hours of sleep, Jonathan and I were up at 4:30am getting ready to head to the Orlando International Airport for our morning flight.

We parked then took a shuttle over to the airport, checked our bags, then headed to our gate. As we grabbed a quick bite of breakfast at the Burger King in the terminal, we watched the sun rise out the east windows. Soon it was time to board and we were on our way to Denver.

The first of many food pictures!

In Denver, we had enough time to eat lunch at Quizno’s before boarding for the last leg of the trip. We ended up having the same crew as the first leg, just a different plane.

The flight from Denver to San Francisco was the bumpiest part of the trip. We ended up having a slight delay landing in San Francisco since the wind was blowing about 25 mph, but after circling a bit we landed safely. We caught a cab and headed to the Marriot.

With the three hour time change, we still had plenty of time to do a little bit of sightseeing that day even though by the time we’d landed we’d been in the air almost eight hours. So, after unpacking and getting coats on, we headed out to take a subway to Ocean Beach to watch the sunset.

We caught the subway underground, but spent most of the ride outside as we headed west and got off at the end of the line. As soon as we were out, I wanted to see the ocean. I had never seen the Pacific before and didn’t want to wait.

It was so cold and so windy. If you look at the sand, you can see the streaks where the sand is blowing. But is was absolutely gorgeous.

The sea was very rough, in fact, signs were posted cautioning about even wading because of the bad rip currents. That didn’t deter people from kitesurfing. I think we saw about three people out there. You can see one in the photo above.

It was a beautiful wide beach.

I (barely) touched the water. I’m guessing it was in the 50s while we were out that day, and the wind was still around 20mph so it was cold out and the water felt colder.

Jonathan went out a bit further than I did.

I spent most of the time out there with my super lightweight scarf tied over my ears. Jonathan doubted that it did any good, but it at least kept some of that wind off!

SO COLD! But it’s the Pacific!!

A windmill in Golden Gate Park.

As you can tell from the photos, we had a bit of time to spare before sunset so we decided to walk the beach then find a bite to eat.

The winds swept away the footprints on the little dune behind me.

We walked along the beach about a mile and up to the Cliff House restaurant and saw a bit of Sutra Baths. We went past Cliff House to eat at a place called Louis’ but it had just closed. So we turned and made our way back to the one lone restaurant we had seen on our walk, a Burger King. They were closing a 7pm and we walked in at 6:50pm. We ordered then left to find a place semi-sheltered from the wind to eat.

We found a place that wasn’t quite as windy and huddled together to eat our dinner. We were pretty hungry by that point…since we were still pretty much on east coast time and it was almost 10pm there…so I’m pretty sure anything would have tasted good. But that was quite possibly the best chicken sandwich I’ve ever eaten.

When we finished, we still had about 20 minutes until sunset so we sought shelter in a Safeway grocery store directly across from the beach. I know that sounds so sad, but it thawed us out enough so that we could actually enjoy the sunset. And it was a good one.

Isn’t that beautiful?

That Saturday we watched the sun rise on the east coast from the airport and watched it set over the Pacific. Pretty amazing.

After the last sliver of the sun dipped out of sight, we high-tailed it over to the bus stop to catch a ride back to our hotel.

On the bus on the way back.

It was a long, full, memorable day. We were both so cold though by the time we got back, we ended up both taking showers just to get warm. I’m pretty sure that as soon as my head hit that pillow though, I was out. And we were both up early the next day, ready to head out to see more.

Easter Sunday 2013

We celebrated our risen Savior at the end of March this year.

On Easter we woke up and got ready for church. We had a quick breakfast then the kids hunted for their Easter baskets.

Charlotte went first and found her basket full of candy and her first Bible. As soon as she saw it she said, “Bible!” Good job, Charlotte!

Next up was Ben.

Ben is still pretty into the Titanic.

And Rosemary found her American Girl Samantha mini-doll and books.

We snapped a quick picture before heading to church at Westside Baptist that morning. Charlotte said her dress was a “princess dress” so she was posing like a princess.

The Breman’s joined us for lunch after church as we wrapped up celebrating Resurrection Sunday.

Spring Break 2013

At the end of March, the kids and I took a week off for spring break. I think we were all ready to take a step back from the routine of preschool, homeschool, and all of the other usual weekly commitments. We spent the first part of the week close to home then headed down to Eustis for a few days at the end of the week when Jonathan had some time off too.

One of the days we headed over to SeaWorld.

Ben and Rosemary were very excited about their whale flukes necklaces.

After SeaWorld, we stopped off to visit a bit with Janey and Becky (and finished delivering all of the Girl Scout cookies!) It was good to see each of them and catch up.

Before heading back to Gainesville, we met up with Jonathan’s side of the family for a picnic. It was perfect weather and so fun to see everyone.

Janice had an Easter egg hunt for the kids to enjoy.

Rosemary had a great time playing with her cousins. She said that playing with Breanna was the best part.

Charlotte desperately wanted a picture taken after she ate her cupcake.

Ben enjoyed the icing on his cupcake…not sure if he actually ate the cake part of it.

Jonathan and I walked with the kids down to the water. We played and visited a bit more before heading back to Gainesville.

We hadn’t dyed Easter eggs yet and Janice gave both Rosemary and Ben paint sticks to paint eggs with so when we got home, I headed to work and Jonathan boiled some eggs. The kids painted them that night.

Girl Scout Cookies 2013

This year Rosemary sold 300 boxes of cookies during presales. Jonathan and I spent an evening sorting them then Rosemary and I spent the next two weeks distributing them. It was a big job, but she did a great job!