We took the Forest Service Boat to Alcatraz, this is just before we boarded.
Alcatraz was a Civil War Prison for sucessionists, then a prison for the worst of the worst criminals, it was shut down in 1963, 50 years ago, what coincidence! There was a brief American Indian occupation in the late 60's, then it was turned into a National Park.
View of the Bay Bridge and San Francisco Skyline
Docking the boat - behind me were the living quarters for the guards and their families.
There's still a functioning light house on the Island.
It's hard to believe this is only 1 mile from San Francisco
If you look really close you can see the Golden Gate Bridge in the background
Mike in Cell Block D - where they put the uncooperative prisoners.
Our goal was to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge, we found transit transportation to the edge of town, but were still about 8 miles from the bridge. We decided to walk it, why not? 8 miles there, 1.7 across each way, 8 miles back. 6 miles in we were thinking there was NO WAY would we ever make it before dark, when suddenly we say a store call the Sports Basement, with a sign that said "Bike Rentals" (Why didn't we think of that back in town?) So we went inside, rented a tandem bike and we were on our way to the bridge. We did have to get off and push it up one very steep hill as it seemed to no matter how hard we pedaled we got nowhere and didn't feel so bad when the really fit locals were huffing and puffing up the hill.
We were almost to the bridge and Mike thought we needed a picture, so there I am, holding up the bike! We are just about a quarter of a mile from the bridge entrance.
Riding across at sunset, it was AMAZING! I bet the locals that ride this path daily kind of resent the tourists, they go whizzing past as we try to take everything in.
At the halfway point on the way back.
Didn't have anyone to take a picture of us both on the bike, so this is what we've got! Ha ha!
It's interesting to note that though the bridge looks red in color, the official name for the color of the bridge is International Orange, and if you like this color, Sherwin Williams will mix up a custom can for you. Not sure I'd every paint a room in my house that color, but it's good to know, in case....
Now for the rest of the story...after our very wonderful ride across the bridge, we returned the bike and decided it was a bit dark and a long way back, so we decided to call a cab. They said, "No problem, be there in about 15 minutes." 10 minutes later they called us and said, "We can't find a cab to go where you are, so we walked ALL the way back to the bus stop we got off at, and caught the bus back to Fisherman's Wharf, had dinner and took the trolley back to our BART stop and headed home. We had a done a lot of walking, and our feet were hurting A LOT, but, it was so worth if for the memory of biking across that bridge at sunset.
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