The Prison On The Rock

Alcatraz was the only thing Isaac new about San Francisco before our visit to the city and was therefore very impatient to go visit the prison. We decided to grant him his wish early on in the trip so that he didn’t nag us too much about it, because once he gets and idea in his head, that’s what he tends to do. Well, at least he’s persistent. We took a later ferry over the bay because we didn’t want to leave Kizmet at home for two long, since our boat to Alcatraz only left at 3:20pm. There was a farmer’s market a little ways down the street from the ferry terminal that Dad wanted to go to, so we walked over there about a half hour before we had to be at our ferry, just to take a look around. We bought a couple of desserts and browsed before heading on our way. We had no

trouble catching our ferry on time and ate our snacks during the short ride. When we arrived, we had some time to spare before we had to leave for Alcatraz, so we walked a few blocks into town so we could go to Chinatown for lunch, as per Dad’s request. We wandered around for a bit but couldn’t find any restaurants with tables so we eventually just bought some dumplings and some steamed buns to go. Everything together costed five bucks, a pretty good deal if I do say so myself. On the walk back down to down to the ferry terminal, we munched on our food and then took the trolley over to Pier 39 to do some more looking around. Since it was so much

warmer and sunnier, the pier was a hell of a lot busier, and I had a little trouble making my way through the crowds. I had some fun picking out keychains from one of the shops and then amused myself by exploring a nearby hat shop. They had some pretty cool snapbacks in there, but I think my favourite ones were the Captain America hat, the Winter Soldier hat, the Deadpool hat and the Civil War hat, which had the silhouettes of Iron Man and Cap on the brim. Once we’d wasted enough time on shopping, we grabbed the trolley back to Pier 33 and finished our food while we waited for our turn to board the boat over to The Rock. It really is a rock people, all the plants on the island were brought over in the late 1800’s, and even still, there aren’t that many. The boat ride was pretty short

and rather boring. I read the whole way over. When we disembarked, one of the park rangers was beginning a little orientation speech for all the new visitors, so we joined in with the crowd to take a listen. The ranger basically just told us where to go, so it was kind of a waste of time, but we did learn that an old inmate was currently on the island talking to the visitors, which was cool. We had to walk up to the top of The Rock in order to get into the penitentiary and to get our audio tours, so off we went. The walk to the top wasn’t nearly as steep as the ranger had made it out to be, and we made it to the entrance without any problems. We had to wait in line a little bit so we could get our tours, but once I had mind, I went off on my own. The tour, narrated by a former guard, started in

cell block A and continued all the way through the prison, telling the story of it’s rather short period as a high security penitentiary. Before the island had become known because of all the criminals locked up there, it had housed a Union fort, built a little before the Civil War. It’s original prisoners had been prisoners of was, all of them confederates. Alcatraz was opened as a penitentiary in 1934 and was closed less than thirty years later in 1963, so it really didn’t have a very long lifespan. We heard about a few of the attempted breakouts that had taken place during the time that the prison was open. The biggest attempted breakout happened in 1946 when six inmates tried to escape, resulting in the death’s of two guards and three inmates. The prison was under siege for two days, which later became known as the Battle of Alcatraz, when the army was called in

and grenades started dropping into the prison, trying to kill those who had tried to escape. Of the three inmates who lived through the ordeal, two were executed for their crimes. The one who was allowed to live wasn’t executed because he hadn’t directly harmed anyone during the escape attempt. The other escape attempt we heard about happened in 1962 when three inmates dug their way through their vents with spoons, fashioned fake heads out of plaster and broke out during the night. No one noticed they were gone until the next morning at roll call when they didn’t get out of bed. No one actually knows if any of the three survived their escape. It is possible that they froze our drowned in the bay when they tried to get back over to the mainland. It is also possible that they made their way down to South America and disappeared. Apparently, that had been their plan when they were plotting their

escape. In any case, no one ever saw them again. I also learned that the warden and his family lived on the island, which was kind of interesting. Some of the guards also lived in Alcatraz and there were quite a few children who would take the ferry over to the mainland to get to school every morning. After we finished up with the tour, Mum and I headed back down to the bottom of the hill where they have a theatre and a museum, which we checked out while Isaac bought some stuff in the gift shop. We didn’t stay long, as it was getting late and we needed to catch the next boat off the island. Mum and I just took a quick look around, watched the beginning of the orientation video and then hurried down to meet the boys and the boarding dock once the ferry arrived. When we finally arrived back at the campground, the boys made some quesadillas while I did some homework. We watched an episode of Corner Gas after dinner and then headed to bed. Peace out m8s.

#camping #sanfrancisco #california