Day 27, Wednesday May 14

• We drove into San Francisco and went to Pier 33 to catch our boat! We were heading to Alcatraz!
  
• Alcatraz was pretty darn cool—we all did the audio tour (well, everyone except Ruby). The boys had a lot of questions about the tour and the whole place. It was super interesting to learn about the lives of the guards’ families (who lived there on the island also!).
  
• A bit of trivia for y’all—do you know who came up with the idea of putting expiration dates on milk? It was during the Depression, and kids were dying from drinking curdled, old milk. The answer—Al Capone. He used his convincing (not asking) to get a local farmer to stamp the due dates on a little cardboard flap on the tops of glass milk bottles. Now, of course, everybody does that. 1 good thing Al Capone did. :)
  
• In 1962 there were 3 men who escaped Alcatraz who were never found. For months (or years?) they’d been gathering spoons from the lunch room an digging away at the vents at the back of their cells (there was a cover plate on it that covered up the holes they were making). One night (after the lights went out, which was always at 9 pm), they climbed through those holes and up the pipes & onto the roof. They got out of Alcatraz and created flotation devises out of rain coats. The next morning, when the guards tried to get them up, they said the guys wouldn’t wake up—the guys had cleverly created “dummy heads” out of soap, with hair and everything (I’m not sure how!). They never found the guys, but the official statement was that they probably drowned. One of the prisoners said that those 3 men were studying Spanish & probably went to South America. Crazy!!
  
• There were tons of other great stories, I recommend y’all visit! It made Karry and I want to see all of the movies about Alcatraz that are out there!
  
• After Alcatraz we went to lunch at the Rain Forest Café, which the kids had been asking to go to every time they saw it. The place is decorated like a jungle and there are big animals that “come alive” every now and then. It was a very cool place.
  
• We went back to Chocolate Heaven to pick up a few more Flake bars, some chocolate bars (Cadbury) that are nut-free and made in England. Mmmm. :)
  
• That evening, we drove to Hayward to have dinner with Karry’s boss (who works in Oakland), Amit, and his wife Jas. It was really fun getting together with them!! They have 2 little boys (3 and 1-1/2, Avi and Rohan) who played with our boys. Ruby loved the space to crawl, and the fun toys. We munched on some yummy spinach dip with bread and other goodies as dinner cooked. Jas made pasta, and salad & bread for dinner (yum!) and there was ice cream and chocolate cheesecake for dessert. She made some YUMMY Indian Chai Tea for us. Oooh, I think I need her recipe! :) We really had fun hanging out with them & hope we didn’t stay too late! We’ve been busy doing so much these days and haven’t had a lot of conversation (besides small talk in line for a ride, or whatever) with people besides ourselves. It was really nice to spend the evening chatting with Amit and Jas, and I know that the boys really enjoyed playing with their boys!!

Noah with more of those yummy donuts from Pier 39!



I think I'd want one of the top cells--those people could see out the window. :)

Ahh! Where'd that key go?

Whew! The door is open!!

The city views are beautiful from Alcatraz. They said that sometimes they could hear laughter & noises coming from the city, which would drive the prisoners crazy. It was a constant reminder of what they were missing out on.

The boys and I at the Rain Forest Cafe.

Karry & Ru-bear. :)

The big elephant that kept making noises.

Lombard St., the crookedest street in the world, I think. It used to be so steep that it was really too steep to drive on, so they added the turns to soften the grade. It's still very steep and very crooked. We wouldn't have made it down this street with the trailer!! :)

Isaac loved going down the hills!! Kaleb and Noah were sleeping. :)

Ruby, with Rohan in the background. Ruby hasn't been in an exersaucer in so long! I usually put her in it at home when I'm loading & unloading the laundry (so she doesn't eat detergent, or kitty litter or whatever is in the laundry room!!). She usually handles it ok, but this time she LOVED being in it, I think especially in the middle of all of the kids playing!!

Our boys with Avi, playing together.

Me with Ruby. She knows what to do when we pull out the camera, doesn't she? :)

Amit and Jas. They were very sweet to us!!