From the Channel Islands, we drove north to the Bay area where we met up with family at a lovely brewpub in Oakland. I had been to San Francisco many times for work, but had never made it out to Alcatraz. Mrs. 123 and her brother had watched “Escape from Alcatraz” many times as kids, and so she wanted to go as well. We prepped for our trip by watching the movie again.
The boat out to Alcatraz leaves from Pier 33 in downtown San Francisco. We had arrived early not knowing how long it would take us to find parking. We tried getting on an earlier boat, but apparently they don’t allow that. There were hundreds of people getting on each boat. It’s clearly one of the more popular attractions in the city.
The trip out was fairly quick, and once we arrived, we got a long briefing from a park service ranger. It could have been boiled down to two sentences: walk up the hill, and pick up your audio guide in the prison building.
Alcatraz Island is a relatively small outcropping about 1.25 miles across the bay from the downtown area. The island was used in the 19th century as a lighthouse, military fort and military prison. In 1934, Alcatraz was converted into a federal prison, the Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary. The strong currents around the island and cold water temperatures made escape nearly impossible, and the prison became one of the most notorious in American history.
The penitentiary was established to hold problem criminals, an early version of a supermax facility. Nobody got sentenced directly to time in Alcatraz. You had to be transferred there from other prisons, usually for bad behavior or trying to escape.
Prison guards lived on the island with their families, and everything from food to water had to be brought in by boat.
The walk up to the main prison passed by various administrative buildings and the morgue. You enter the prison through the same door through which inmates first arrived, into the room where they received their prison uniforms and showered. They were then marched naked to their cells, past all the other inmates, where they could finally put on their new prison clothes.
The shower room was a big open room where men showered together.
Past the shower room, you are handed an audio player and headphones with former guards and prisoners narrating the tour.
We were immediately struck by how small the cells were, with just enough room for a bed, a sink, a toilet and a desk and chair that folded down from the wall. A couple of shelves along the back wall held any possession you were allowed to keep.
The tour leads you outside to the exercise area, a long cement rectangle with one end holding a dirt and grass baseball field, the other end painted for the types of games you played at recess in elementary school. On the side were rows of concrete bleachers.
It wasn’t a particularly bad weather day when we visited but the May wind blew cold and hard. It must have been miserable.
Now, seabirds, mostly gulls, cormorants, and egrets, have taken over much of the outside space on the island, including the exercise yard.
Back inside, the tour continues to some of the isolation cells, where you can walk inside and feel how hopeless the entire situation probably was for those sent there.
In an adjacent cell block, the audio tour tells the story of the most famous escape attempt, brought to the silver screen by Clint Eastwood in the film “Escape from Alcatraz.” As part of their plan, three prisoners made paper-mace heads to place on their pillows so guards wouldn’t notice they were missing. You can still see the fake heads in the cells from which the prisoners escaped.
The final spot on the tour was the kitchen and dining hall, considered the most dangerous area of the prison. Here prisoners were all together, out in the open. If anything was going to happen, it would happen there. The roof had tear gas canisters embedded in the ceiling, just in case.
The prison had held a number of famous gangsters including Tommy “Machine Gun” Kelly, Bumpy Johnson, and of course, Al Capone.
Capone had been held elsewhere but was allowed so many luxuries it barely qualified as incarceration. Alcatraz, where rules were harsh and rigid, must have been a rude awakening. On the other hand, Capone was losing his mind due to neurological complications of syphilis, so maybe he didn’t really notice.
Another famous inmate was Robert Stroud, the legendary Birdman of Alcatraz. Stroud kept birds as pets at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He studied them and actually published scientific research about diseases affecting them. At Alcatraz, however, he wasn’t allowed to keep any pet birds.
Alcatraz was finally shut down in 1963, having operating less than 30 years as a penitentiary. You might think the Rock was shut down because approaches to incarceration shifted more towards rehabilitation. That trend was certainly ongoing at the time. But the prison was closed mainly due to costs. Everything had to be brought to the island by boat, including water, and it just wasn’t an economical place to hold prisoners.
From San Francisco, we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge and drove north along the shoreline to Fort Bragg to visit Glass Beach. Inside MacKerricher State Park, Glass Beach is known for the tiny beads of colored glass that wash up on the shore. Decades ago, people threw trash into the ocean, including bottles and other glassware. Over time the glass got knocked around by the ocean currents in a natural tumbler that rounded the sharp edges and polished the pieces.
Ironically, the trash resulted in a beautiful multicolored beach that glistens as the waves roll up the beach, then depart leaving the wet glass shining in the sun.
The beach was once much more dramatic, but over time, tourists have whittled down the amount of glass remaining. It’s technically illegal to remove any of the glass, but there’s no one there to enforce it.
Fort Bragg itself has little to offer other than a moderately interesting International Sea Glass Museum. It’s more of a curiosity shop with a few displays of sea glass. Still, it’s interesting to see the various shades of glass and to learn what glassware came in what hues. They ask for donations, suggesting $2 per person, rather than charging admission.
To break up our drive to Oregon, we made a short stop in Redwood National Park. We had been there before and had seen many the park’s tallest trees. On this trip, we primarily wanted to visit Fern Canyon. The site is a lush canyon with ferns growing up its near vertical sides. From the parking area, it’s a 1-mile hike into the canyon walking upstream through a shallow creek. The scene is a sensory overload of bright green. It’s such a remarkable site that several movies have been filmed here, including most famously, Jurassic Park.
To hike the canyon, you’re going to get your feet wet. There are enough stones and logs to give the illusion you can keep dry, but eventually you succumb to the water. Mrs. 123 changed into sandals and just walked through the frigid water. I was testing a pair of waterproof hiking boots, so I tried to be a bit more selective. Nonetheless, I emerged from the canyon with wet socks.
Fern Canyon would be even more stunning if it wasn’t for the number of people hiking with you. The park service tries to control the volume of tourists with a timed reservation system. But you never really have any of the canyon to yourself.
This would be our last stop in California, as we headed north into Oregon and back home to Bend for a brief visit. From Bend, we’d head on to Denver for some medical visits, and then double-back to visit some must-see sights in Wyoming.
Days: 136
Miles Traveled: 16,667
Next stop: Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area
