The last full day of our honeymoon had arrived. At some point, we needed to pack and get ready for the flight home. However, we had something to do before that – tour Alcatraz. I was definitely excited about it because every trip needs to include a historic site. Necole said she was excited about it. At first, I thought she was saying that for my benefit, but, as time passed, I started to think that she really was fired up for this.
We had tickets for the 1:00 tour and needed to kill time before loading onto the boat. Walking out of our hotel, we instinctively looked for a place to have breakfast. All we saw was a Mexican restaurant. This wasn’t Santa Fe, so we weren’t down for that. Just as we were about to go back and talk to the concierge, I saw it. Angels sang as I looked upon an IHOP. Pancakes. Eggs. Hashbrowns. Here we come.
When that was over, we walked a block to the wharf. Sunday morning is a lot less hectic than Saturday afternoon. People strolled along peacefully. Others jogged from one end to the other. Up ahead, Necole saw a guy who looked just like Marlon Brando. I mean a living Marlon Brando, not the skeletal version. In all, it was a completely different atmosphere.
We took advantage of this and strolled hand in hand to the site of the Louis Vuitton Cup.
It is a preliminary round for the America’s Cup and was being held in San Francisco Bay. I’m not sure how someone watching a sailing race, but there was a lot of other cool stuff to do.
Finally, it was time to go to Alcatraz, one of my favorite places to tour. It’s amazing to walk through the prison and wonder what its inhabitants went through. This was definitely the end of the line in the prison world. Being sent here meant you were the baddest of the bad. From the island, the sounds of the free world can be easily heard. In some ways, that had to be the hardest part.
The prison wasn’t that large and didn’t have as many guards as one would think. The water was the ultimate guard. Although land is a short distance away, the waters are too treacherous to swim across. A few people tried to escape. Most never got off the island. Those who did have never been heard from again.
We escaped the island and found ourselves back on a crowded wharf. However, we weren’t wandering around not knowing where to go. We had a goal, and it was In-N-Out Burger. Everyone told us about the greatness of these hamburgers, and they weren’t lying. Necole and I both agreed that it was one of the most awesome hamburgers we have ever had. After lunch, we planned on riding a trolley, which would have been our second visit to a piece of preserved history, but the line was an hour long. After an entire week of eating, drinking and sightseeing. We were ready to pack it in.
There was one other thing to do, however. We asked the concierge if there was a place to have dinner that wasn’t touristy and wasn’t seafood. She led us to an Italian restaurant on the non-wharf side of the hotel. It was quiet and peaceful. The type of place we needed to have the first argument of our marriage.
SBI: A Thinning Crowd 