We leapt out of bed bright and early today, ready to get to Pier 33 for our trip to Alacatraz. Outside our hotel room a car was about to be towed away and we watched the process with morbid interest. A parking warden rolled up in a little, white, three-wheeled car and filled out various forms until the tow-truck arrived. It was all very efficient and it was nice to see someone who was clearly enjoying his work.
We could have watched it all day but we had prisons to visit so we set off on foot for the waterfront. The boat ride to the island is about 15 minutes and there are great views of the bay, the bridges across it and the city itself.
The prison was a salutary reminder that bank robbery, or indeed tax evasion, was probably not an advisable lifestyle choice in mid-twentieth century America (or at least it wasn’t if you got caught at it). Still it was nice to feel we were walking in the steps of such illustrious predecessors as Alphonse Capone and Creepy Karpis.
Probably the worst thing about being incarcerated there was the sights and sounds of the free world just a mile or so across the bay. Apparently the distance between the island and the San Francisco shore is swimmable, and people do regularly do it although you have to get the tide just right and you have about 40 minutes before hypothermia sets in.
Anyway, tempting as it might have been, we opted to get the boat back rather than swim. We then walked up to the cablecar terminus and caught the car back to the other end of the line which is quite close to our hotel. The system is an interesting combination of a tourist attraction and a perfectly functional means of public transport that doesn’t seem to have changed much for about 100 years.
Just for a change, we stopped off at a bar on our way back to the hotel and got talking to an Australian chap who was taking a month off from his job as the “sound engineer” in a strip club in Perth to go surfing in Mexico (which he reckoned was much better than on the Pacific coast here). He had called in to San Francisco on the way to see what it was like. Unfortunately we forgot to get his details as he would have been a very useful contact should we ever wish to watch exotic dancers in Western Australia.
This evening we decided to eat tapas – in homage to Don Gaspar de Portola and others who claimed this area for Spain in the 18th century – or maybe just because we like tapas. Anyway it was a very nice meal. We ordered oysters but they’d run out so we got a complimentary portion of pig’s ears instead! These really were pig’s ears and were rather like slightly upmarket pork scratchings. Mark’s witty comment about silk purses elicited a polite but clearly uncomprehending chuckle from the waitress.
Tomorrow we are back on the road to some place in the back of beyond which Mark tells me is the “marijuana capital” of the USA and which boasts a “cannabis college”! Further updates will follow in due course if I’m not too stoned!
Over the Hill and Far Away.......... 
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