After all the pomp and circumstance, the San Francisco adventure began with an early morning boat ride to Alcatraz on May 30. The typically foggy, cool morning set the scene perfectly for our prison adventure.
Though the buildings have been battered by weather, the flowers and landscape are beautiful.
Nonetheless, the weathered buildings made for good black and white photos~my favorite cousins' photo!
The amazing audio tour of the prison was filled with stories and details of life within the walls of the most famous prison in America.
With crazy eyes, he plays the prisoner part well.
A rare photo with mom and me!
A former inmate now makes a legitimate living in his old age selling his story to tourists~aka us!
After spending the morning hiking around the island, we cruised back across the bay to Fisherman's Wharf where we found a cozy table for 10 at Bubba Gump's. We filled our bellies in preparation for the afternoon of city boot camp!
The hills of San Francisco are most memorable if you hike up and down them! We paused at the bottom of Lombard street on our trek to Chinatown.
The bustling streets of Chinatown are filled with sights and sounds influenced by a homeland far away. We explored the stores and visited the Golden Fortune Cook Factory and Portsmouth Park before finding the cable car stop.
We piled into the already full cable car for our ride back down to the water's edge. The boys snagged outside seats! The rest of us held on to our bars and gratefully swayed with the car as it went up and down the hills!
The car emptied quickly as we made our way to Ghirardelli to enjoy ice-cream desserts beneath the iconic cityscape lights of an old landmark.
Our final trek was back to the car. Twelve hours after we began our adventure we arrived home again, ready to rest our weary feet.
We have a photo album full of fun snapshots of the day, but it doesn't capture the banter of voices and easy laughter that makes family so fun!
It was truly a memorable day.
