Yosemite and San Francisco

Does anyone remeber the cartoons about Yosemite Sam? Or have you heard of the Keystone Cops? These were things I was thinking of as we header out for yet another National Park- Yosemite. We had just planned to drive through it, mainly as it was just nicely between Death Valley and San Francisco and also because the best thing to do there is go hiking. If we had more time or if the kids were older then we could have planned differently. As it was we enjoyed the drive. It is a park with beautiful forests and some sparkling mountain lakes. But the feature which suprised us was the huge amount of rock there. Driving along you could see, on the edge of a woody field, a gigantic hill of solid rock.  Then, going up and up over a mountain pass, all of the hill side beside the car was made of layers and layers of rock.  It was a nice drive and we enjoyed the scenery.
We had found another place to stay through acandleinthewindow.com but it was near Tracy, Ca and not in San Francisco itself. We figured that we could cope with driving an hour each way every day. Oh if only that had been the case!!!  We were staying with a very welcoming Chinese family with six children. Our kids were again ecstatic to have kids to play with. We were really impressed with the kids ability and commitment to memorising Bible verses. They are involved int he Bible Bee competitions and flew oiut to the national  competition in Orlando while we were there.
So the first morning, after socialiaing, we got on the road at about 8:40 am. Well, there was traffic. We made it to the toll Booth on the Bay Bridge at exactly 10 am, which wasn't bad because at 10 the toll is 2 dollars cheaper!  We paid flat rate parking and got out to enjoy the City and to get oriented.

Anywhere where there is a large body of water, on a sunny day, is relaxing for us. It was great to walk along the pier and see the harbour and smell the sea.  We went first to Alcatraz Tours to see about booking a City Pass, which would include the Alcatraz Tour. As it happened the tour was booked for that day so we booked it for the next afternoon and purchased our pass.  We had delicious fish and chips for lunch and went to the Exploratorium and there we stayed until closing at 5pm.  The Exploratorium has dozens of experiments and exhibits for kids to play with and learn from.  Everyone tried out exhibits dealing with memory, responses, light, energy, and natural life such as tides, trees, geysers and fish. The kids even watched the dissection of a cow's eyeball!

 

We headed back through traffic to our host family for supper, arriving late. The next day we vowed to get up and go early in an effort to avoid the traffic. We were out of the house by 6:30! That was great but unfortunately the free way was even busier than the day before.  Instead of sitting in traffic we pulled off to a Walmart to buy and eat some breakfast. We enjoyed the early morning sitting in the parking lot, listening to the free way traffic and rating our cereal in plastic cups. Once back on the road the traffic was slightly better and we arrived at the Bay Bridge at 10 to 10 am. We hadn't gained any time but at least we had had breakfast!

We bought some bagels and tea- Dominik was desperate- and we walked up to Chinatown. The kids found it all really interesting, especially looking in the little shops. We had a look at the Cable Car Museum and then found a restaurant in Chinatown for lunch.  Both of these places were interesting, as was watching the kids trying to eat with chopsticks!

By this time we had seen a few people that we had passed pointing their fingers at us and visibly counting the children. For some it was nice and clearly some thought that we were an oddity.  Well, we saw things which we thought odd as well!
Now, on to Alcatraz!  We weren't sure what it would be like there but having heard so many stories about it, and some of those bring talk tales, we were excited to see it. Plus, to get there we got to cross the bay on a ferry!  Jeremiah especially was for days just focused on the boat ride part of this trip!!! We had our photo taken against the Alcatraz backdrop, as did everyone (but we didn't buy the photo!) and we boarded. It was a short crossing but it was lovely to be out on the water.

Upon landing we were all greeted with a short intro to the Island and it's colourful history, as well as with a list of do's and dont's from the local Park Ranger. The Island has been a National Park site since the 70's. Just a brief history for you, the Island was used as a fort during the American Revolution, and then as a military prison. It was those prisoners who actually built up the prison. Then, during all the lawlwssness of Prohibition, the American public really needed a more secure prison for it's most notorious prisoners. Some of these then included George 'Maschine Gun' Kelly, Robert Stroud (the Birdman of Alcatraz) and Al Capone. The prisoners were issued a number and their names were not used. Some reformed but many did not with this method of de-humanization. Interestingly, as an aside, I just read an article on the BBC about a prison on a Norwegian Island which employs cimpletely the opposite method, and with very good results. Here is a link: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-18121914.

It is widely said that no one has ever escaped from Alcatraz, but that isn't entirely accurate. On June 11, 1962 three men places dummies with Maske in their bees and crawled away through the ventilation vents in their Celle, which they had chipped away at and enlarged with their very sturdy spoons from the dining room! The three men were never found and theories regarding their fate favour two alternatives. The first theory is that they drowned, currents being strong and dangerous in the Bay. The second theory is that they somehow made it to South America, because all three had been Learing Spanish before their escape! We may never know. 

We first watched the introductory film about the island's history and then, in the Main prison building, in the men's shower area, we were all issued with an audio tour. This tour was great, with recordings of guards and former prisoners talking about how things were done. They walked about how cold and drafty the prison was, and how the few cells which received sunlight were the most desirable. We learned that through good behaviour prisoners were alowed to borrow books from the prison library, or even take correspondence courses. We also learned that, although life was monotonous, they had the best food in the American penal system!  The guards lived in military housing on the Island with their families and their children took the ferry to San Francisco every day for school and then came back to their quiet island in the afternoon. They saw or heard very little from the prisoners. So, you can see, we learned a lot there! Then we headed back on the Ferry just as the sun was sitting and all the lights on the Bay Bridge were coming on. It was the last boat back and it was beautiful!

We ate another batch of great fish and chips (WHY is Austria landlocked????) and had our drive home to Tracy in the dark. Now, knowing that leaving early couldn't help us and as we had to pack up, we header out around 9am and made it back into the City to go on some Cable Cars! We hadn't really the day before and we knew that we couldn't bring the buggy with us. We found some street parking and went to the beginning of the line as it was right there. Little did we know that the cars don't actually come all that often and if you are too many people then you won't all get on. We close the line with the steepest hills but we realised that we couldn't make it back in time for our parking, which increased drastically after noon.  In the end Dominik walked far enough up that he could get on the cable car- fewer tourists.  He could then make it to the car and pay for more parking. The kids and I were denied on a couple of cars and then we walked downhill a couple of stops to where there were also fewer tourists. We made it to the car about 10 minutes after Dominik!

We had planned to head straight to Monterray to the Aquarium there as it was a part of our City Pass. But then we ended up in traffic. That is the Theme to our time in San Francisco. If you want to really enjoy your time there, get a cheap motel in town and save some time! Anyway, we decided to go straight to our accommodation (another ACITW spot) where we had a really great evening getting to know another Christian couple and to hear about life in their area. The next day the Aquarium was only  a 45 minute drive, which was fantastic!!! We got there early and stayed longer than we had expected. It is a superb Aquarium. It was so impressive, we really recommend it. First we went to the penguin feeding, which was cute.  Then we went on to the deep sea feeding of dolfin fish, tuna, Hammerhead sharks and sardines. The tank was massive and the viewing area is well below the surface in a darkened room. The sardines were slow in coming but watching 20,000 silver sardines swimming in unisono is impressive. There was another sardine school in another tank which had more daylight and it was absolutely gorgeous to see them swimming in a great ball.

We also found the jellyfish to be impressive. They had the area darkened and then the tanks had deep bright blue backgrounds and were mit from below. Dominik suggested that we might want to included a jellyfish display in our house when(ever!) we build it. 

After sea otters, tidal pools, touch pools and rays, we plunged out in the rain to buy some lunch from the grocery store and to drive on out to Los Angeles!