Alcatraz

 Ashlee and I, along with 3 of her friends their moms all went to Alcatraz together yesterday.   The 5th grade classes have been planning this field trip all year long, yesterday they finally got to go.  There are 50 5th graders in their school.  All but 6 kids, had at least one or more parent or grandparent go with them.  The group was huge.  The weather was perfect.  Not too hot, not too cold.  A little windy on the boat ride over to the island, but other than that it was great. 

I have never been to Alcatraz, so it was a neat experience for both of us.  The day we visited there was a guy there who's father was a worden at Alcatraz, and he grew up on the island.  He has wrote some books about his experiences on Alcatraz and he was there signing books.

 Ashlee in front of a model of Alcatraz, before we boarded the boat to the island.

 Alyssa and Ashlee on the Boat.  Headed to the island.

Ashlee, Alyssa, Sarah and Lauren

The inside of a cell.

Ashlee in cell.  The tour is a self guided audio tour.  That's why we have headphones on.

Ashlee and I in a solitary confinment cell.  These were small and dark.

Alyssa and Meliesa

Looking out a prison window at the San Francisco Bay.

Sarah, Ashlee and Lauren

Lauren, Alyssa, Sarah and Ashlee in the gift shop at Alcatraz

This may look gross.  But there were 3 prisoners that made these heads out of soap and placed them in their beds to make it look like they were in their cells.  They escaped the prison through a utility room corridor using spoons.  They planned their escape for over a year.  They were never found and it is believed that they made it to South America (I think they became shark food).  But I guess one will never know.

After our tour on the island we had a late lunch on Pier 39 and headed home.  Needless to say, the bay area traffic was awful.  It took us 45min to get through one stop light, over 3 hours to get home.  While we were sitting in traffic, a crazy city driver came up along side us (my friend Meliesa was driving) and hit the mirror on the side of her car. Cut us off, got into the lane next to us, and acted as if nothing happened.  Since we were just sitting in traffic we decided to confront this crazy driver.  He knew what he did, but all he had to say was "I was in a turn line and needed to go straight.  So I needed to get over."  I guess to him that means you wipe out anything in your way to get in the lane you need to be in.  Thankfully there wasn't any damage and no one got hurt.  Traffic was slow all the way home.  Our trip to Alcatraz ended up taking 12 hours from start to finish.  We all had fun, but we were all a little tired.  It was a long day!