Alcatraz

Alcatraz has been booked for tonight (Friday), so we attend to the essentials of laundry. Three large bags, representing just about everything apart from what we are wearing (we being the male members of the contingent) and some smalls from Lady P, who manages her wardrobe far more efficiently, are deposited at the local Chinese laundry. Despite their assurances that they know what goes where, we are dubious. There are bags and racks of clothes everywhere and in no apparent order. Nonetheless, we collect our tickets and depart, agreeing to return the next day. To fill in some time before we head to town, Lady P takes us on a tour of the local neighbourhood, noticing that the architecture and obvious value in the homes increase with the elevation. 
Late afternoon sees us heading to town for lunch at Fisherman's Wharf Pier 1, where, in deference to Flashman's sudden onset upset stomach, the team have a bread, cheese, olives and pate lunch. Flashman picks at the bread and has a glass of red. At 5 PM we meet up with Joanne, Steph and Adam who have arrived from their road trip from Seattle and board the ferry for the short 1.4 mile ride to Alcatraz.

The facility is now run by the National Parks Service and hasn't been a Federal Penitentiary since 1963. The Spanish settled the area in 1776 and the Mexicans continued to operate the Fort until the Yankees took half of Mexico in the American / Mexican War in 1846 and thus acquired the island. The US Army then took over and started using it as a prison and fort and by 1861 it had 111 cannon, rows of open gun emplacements and a fortified sally port to protect the buildings. In 1907 the Army decommissioned the fort and the US Military Guard took over and began building a huge concrete cell house. In the 1930's it was transferred from the military to the Dept of Justice as a Federal Prison for high-profile, maximum security prisoners. Alcatraz was home to Al Capone, Machine Gun Kelly and one poor sod who did 25 years for robbing a store of $60. What he did not know, was that there was a post office agency attached to the store, which made his crime a Federal one and thus time in a Federal Pen. The birdman of Alcatraz, Robert Stroud, was also a guest. He never kept birds at Alcatraz at all, (he was transferred from Leavenworth where he conducted his famous bird studies). Bobby Kennedy as AG closed the prison in 1963 due to its high cost of operation. The audio tour was very well done and the return trip at 8.40 pm provided some excellent photos of the city skyline, sunset and the bridges.