We had booked tickets to see Alcatraz while we were in San Fransisco. We’d been advised that you need to book a tour in advance and so we had tickets ready to go for when we were visiting. You hop on a ferry which whisks you away to the island. It is considered to be a National Park and so everything on the island is protected, even rocks and feathers.
It is really well organized actually. You walk up to the top where the jail is and they give you an audio guide which you then walk around with on a self guided tour. It’s set out really well and easy to follow and it talks about all the infamous characters such as The Birdman, Al Capone and Machine Gun Kelly.
There were Rangers that gave talks about the various characters and day to day life when the federal penitentiary was in operation. There were commentary on some of the crazy events and sieges that took place. Surprisingly it held the boys attention quite well. Dylan followed the audio tour around the whole way. Hamish got a little bored after a while but he just took off the headphones and because everyone was listening to the audio, no one could really hear is crazy incessant self-chatter and singing. (Actually quite suitable for the place I might say.) He had all the hits going – Jailhouse Rock and Hound Dog. What can I say, he’s a little Elvis crazy.
Our last day in San Franciso we went to the Haight-Ashbury district, a part of the city known for it’s hippie and underground culture. Artists and musicians such as Jimmy Hendrix and Janis Joplin had been known to live in this part of town. There’s lots of second hand shops and tye-dye clothes, funky street art and music stores. I bought a pair of cheese cloth hippy pants and Dylan thinks that I look like a hobo in them. There are no shortage of Homeless around around I might add. I guess it is the dark side of the drug and hippy culture. We saw lots of homeless people in the park as we were walking to find the children’s park and I was at the point of giving up and turning back but luckily we found it.
It was a lovely little park too and the boys really enjoyed playing in it for a couple of hours, climbing and swinging. The afternoon we spent at the Natural Science Museum. It was a lovely new building with lots of animals and this indoor dome full of fish and wildlife. There were some great art galleries there too but we didn’t really want to push our luck with the boys. They did so well and so we were really careful about not going into overload. So am I allowed to wear my hobo pants out in public? Well of course not if Dylan has his way. We’ll see come summer time.
Today brings no words and no hobo pants. Maybe I’ll wear them up to school when it gets warmer just to see his reaction!
No Words, Just Thoughts... 