Devil's Island aka Alcatraz

Sorry this has taken me so long to post.. I spent my last day with Jolene in San Francisco where we stayed in Fisherman's Wharf and went on an awesome tour of Alcatraz! Jolene has a much more detailed account of our adventure here but just a synopsis.. We stayed in a hotel walking distance from everything. In the morning we ran down to the ferry at Fisherman's Wharf and took it to the island. To my surprise, Alcatraz was not just a huge prison but also a military base, made home to Indians for a short time, and a wildlife sanctuary. Military families actually lived on the island making up quite a large community. The children would take the ferry to school each and every day! After a brief video, we took a tour of the jail.. it was pretty amazing.

Some highlights: The cooks outlined their knives with marker so that they knew if any knives were taken by the prisoners.. they said knives went missing all the time! When prisoners did something wrong they would be locked up in a pitch-black jail cell for days at a time. In order to stay sane, the prisoners would rip a button off of their clothing, throw it, and spend the day crawling around on their hands and knees trying to find it. No prisoner was ever thought to have escaped Devil's Island!!

After our amazing tour we ate at Hard Rock Cafe, did a bit of shopping, and danced with the mimes. We had the most amazing time!