San Francisco- Alcatraz!

Where did we leave off? Oh right... Eric and I were on the ferry to Alcatraz for our night tour of the infamous prison! 

I heart wind. My hair does too. haha.... 

Sean Connery, I'm coming for you. 

The sun was starting to hang lower in the sky as we arrived at Alcatraz island..... *building suspense.. er.. or attempting to..* 

The first stop for prisoners (and our tour)= the showers. Yikes!

I thought it was amazing that the audio tour was in so many different languages! Eric and I were in the extreme minority in our group being from the states. So cool! The guide asked "So where is everyone from?" As Eric and I both opened our mouths, lots of people started in with "Switzerland! Canada! New Zealand!" We just looked at each other and silently mouthed "Oklahoma.." haha..

 Akon's song, Locked Up, is going through my head right now. Totally serious.

 The audio tour started when you pressed play on your little tour box. But, you could stop it any time. Somehow, Eric and I got off on our tours by about 15 seconds. I'd be staring at something intently and listening to the history and he'd be in the next room looking at me like the slow kid.

Oh and check out my new jacket (above)! It's the one I got earlier in the day at REI! Eric actually REALLY wanted one (the guy's version-obviously), but it wasn't in his size. He showed me mine (otherwise I would have missed it) and I fell in love with it... er... as much as one can love a jacket. I got mine partly as a gift from my fantastic boyfriend who doesn't like to see me cold...or maybe just doesn't like to give up his jacket.. but whatever. It was really sweet. :) His mom ended up finding his jacket online for his bday! So Eric has his jacket now, too! Yeah, that's right folks, we kiiinda match. Totally not intended, but whatever. Prepare for the matching jacket photo that will happen at some point on this blog. There's your warning..haha.. ;)

About 20 min into the tour, we stopped our audio to head outside for some sunset photos. :) Eric got some fantastic ones of the skyline, bridge, etc...

The wind and I had a love hate relationship the whole trip, but especially on Alcatraz. (Friends, please note my jacket was zipped up and my scarf was wrapped tightly around my neck. It was chilly! If you're headed there, be prepared! I was plenty warm in what I wore, but I saw others who were totally NOT prepared and felt badly for them). 

In the operating room... nervous! 

 Much creepier after the sun goes down...

Hey, wanna go take a walk on this-super-inviting-and-not-creepy-at-all path?

 When you take the night tour, you have the option of taking the first ferry back (8:40 pm) or the last ferry (9:30). As we saw people scurrying to the 8:40 ferry, we threw caution to the wind and opted to stay til the last ferry. You have free reign of the whole area so you can wander on your own after the tour, which we did. I had about 20 minutes where I seriously thought we'd missed the memo and the 8:40 ferry was indeed the last ferry and we'd therefore be stuck on Alcatraz all night long. There was not a SOUL in sight. Ignoring this fact, Eric wanted to go exploring. I, on the other hand, was channeling my inner Sean Connery badass and trying not to wet my pants.

"Let's go down here and explore!" -Eric. "Seriously?! Tell my mother and my dog that I loved them." -Jackie 

After exploring the super creepy corridor with not another soul in sight, we took a photo...ya know.. just in case we didn't make it out alive... and hiked back up to the main prison area.

This is my "I'm about to become an Unsolved Mystery" face

 Once we got back up, we realized there actually were a ton of people around. Phew. There was another ferry coming and the company wasn't going to leave us there all night after all!

Alcatraz=my favorite part of our trip! :) Seriously, friends, take the night tour! I was being overdramatic in this post, but it was seriously really outstanding. And take the earlier of the two night tours if you can so you get the chance to wander around and take the last ferry back like we did! :) The night tour was recommended by a good friend and she didn't lead us astray! It's a little cooler, but I was comfortable in my zipped (and very well lined) jacket and scarf. I probably could have done well with some light gloves when wandering outside, but that's just me being a wuss and not a necessity.

Got done and ended up hiking quite a bit to find a cab b/c there was a baseball game the same night and no cabs were anywhere near the pier that late. Eh well, whatever. :) We found the subway and drug our cold, tired selves to our hotel feeling really satisfied with the fun-filled evening. :)

Next up, Sonoma/Healdsburg! :) Thanks so much for sticking with me, friends!