Locked up

I forgot to talk about our trip to Alcatraz. We went for our tour on Thursday night. The boat left at roughly 7:15. The night was foggy and cold. We took off and were able to see the city of San Fran like we werent able to from land. It was pretty cool with the Bay Bridge as its background. The fog was too thick for us to even see the Golden Gate. We rode the boat to the other side of the island and were welcomed by our tour guide. That is the difference of going at night rather than the daytime. We were told a story of the history of the island from its military days, to Alcatraz as we all know it, to an Indian reservation of sorts, to the park it is today. We hiked up the hill as our guide told us the story. Once to the prison doors we were sent in to follow along with the audio tour. Very cool. We saw the prison cells where the famous men stayed from Al Capone to the three that "escaped?". We were able to experience solitaire from inside with the voices of actual prisoners depicting how time went by while inside the darkness. We were able to see how prisoners spent there days locked up whether it was art or music or digging through the wall to freedom. After our audio tour there were three other programs that we could choose from to do. We went with Moons over Alcatraz. This guide told about the mooons gravitational pull and how it effects the tide in the Bay. This was to show us how and when one would need to go into the water if they planned to live through an escape. Every year they still wait for the right moment to hold their Swim from Alcatraz event. 1 1/2 mile swim in cold waters where the current hopefully doesnt pull one way or the other. It was completed by a 7 year old! Anyway she showed us the rest of the escape by the three men. Where they cme out on the roof and ran along to where they slid down and jumped the fence to get to the water. I guess there were all sorts of clues left behind to let them know what their escape route was. She then leaves it up to us if we believe if they made it or not. Telling us that every gaurd says no way they died in the water. And every prisoner says oh yeah they made it. Even with Frank(the leader) turning 80 this year he stills has a one million dollar bounty on his head. We finished our tour this past week when we got home by watching Escape From Alcatrz starring Clint Eastwood. Not a bad movie but the best was to watch and see where we had just been. Jill has a little passion for prisons especially escapes so it was really fun to see her excited about the experience.