San Francisco Recap #5: And an island never cries.
As glad as I am that the Untamed Shrew and I missed any Critical-Mass-related traffic / mayhem, I'm somewhat upset that we missed this the following evening: Brain-eating Zombies Invade SF Apple Store. Then again, we did have a completely kickass time on Saturday (May 26), so I guess it all evens out.
For our first adventure of the day, we visited the San Francisco Zoo. The line was immense when we arrived, but the Untamed Shrew had already decided to purchase a membership, so when the zoo staff offered line-jumping privileges to anyone who was planning to sign up for one, we were all set. Even though it was Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, once we got into the Zoo, it really wasn't all that crowded. Obviously, there were animals.
The zoo takes in orphaned and abandoned seal pups and raises them until they can be re-released into the wild. They put colored paint on the pups' heads so they can tell them apart.
This peacock danced his little heart out, but the target of his affections was completely unimpressed. Poor guy.Click below to view his bootie-shaking moves (sorry it's so grainy...YouTube apparently doesn't like my camera.)
After leaving the Zoo, we went to John's Oceanside Diner, formerly known as the Doggie Diner. I wish I'd taken a photo of the apparently famous Doggie Diner dog head, but luckily I found a photo online to demonstrate it's odd ugly-cute appeal:
The former Doggie Diner is the Untamed Shrew's favorite restaurant near the beach, and it was wonderful. I had fantastic French toast and near-perfect scrambled eggs. (Also, the waitress complimented my rings, which I always like to tell MB about later.)
Once we'd stuffed ourselves, we walked down to the moderately redundantly named Ocean Beach. It was pretty neat to realize we were standing at the edge of the country, that if we could step out far enough into the sea, we'd be leaving the United States behind.
It was remarkably cold and blustery on the beach (as it seemed to be anywhere in San Francisco where the Bay or the ocean was nearby), but luckily the Untamed Shrew had warned me to bring a winter hat and gloves. We found more than 30 intact sand dollars (expired, of course), which was pretty fantastic.
After the beach, we headed for Pier 33 to catch our ferry to Alcatraz Island. The cruise company's website said that tickets tend to sell out, so I'd ordered a pair back in April for the night tour. Thank goodness I did, too, because when we got to the pier, the signs on the ticket booth said that the next available bookings were for Tuesday morning at 9 AM. It was absolutely frigid out on the water, but oh so worth it. Luckily, we scored seats inside and near the window for the ride out to the island.
I always kind of assumed that the prison took up the entire island, but there was a lot more to Alcatraz than just the cellhouse. Most of the buildings are in ruins, now, but it's still really neat to see.
This was the warden's house, and even though it's hard to tell from this angle, the place was absolutely huge:
Alcatraz lighthouse #2:
In this old photo, you can see the lighthouse keeper's house at the base of lighthouse #2, as well as the warden's house:
This is the old parade ground, from the days when Alcatraz Island was a military installation. According to the audio tour, the prison staff's children played here:
When the prison staff and their families lived on the island, they built beautiful gardens, which were maintained by work-release prisoners (presumably during Alcatraz's military prison days, and not its super-scary-bad-guys prison days).
The cellhouse itself was pretty incredible, and I've been trying to come up with the words I need to encapsulate it ever since I got back, but you can't neatly summarize a place like Alcatraz. It's truly impossible.
Even on Alcatraz, though, there's beauty to be found, if you just take the time to look:
Hit Shutterfly for more zoo & beach pictures and a few more Alcatraz pictures.
Alcatraz is so freaking cool. I had no idea there was so much to it.
ReplyDeleteI've only sailed around the island itself on a brief trip into SF. We had two small babies with us and didn't plan ahead for tickets. I've heard it's a fabulous place to see.
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