Boy was I tired last night.  My sprint triathlon pretty much wore me out.  I slept fairly well and woke up in enough time to get a good shower in before the girls starting stirring around 7.  A note of interest.  Should you ever find yourself at this hotel, I highly recommend requesting a courtyard view.  Our street-view room was loud.  Between the noise and the fact that I couldn’t get the AC to run at a constant din made it hard to sleep great.  I slept well but not great.  In one of my strokes of brilliance, I had pre-booked our tickets to visit Alcatraz and had managed to get us on the first ferry of the day.  This proved to be wonderful.

We made it to the ferry around 8:15 and were about halfway back in the line.  We boarded the boat and began the short ride out to the island.  It was cold.  Like really cold.  Like pull up the hoods and shiver cold.  It was overcast, cold, and windy.  The girls were glad to have followed my advice and dress warmly.  I thought once we got to the island the wind would settle down, yet it remained brisk for our whole time there.  We watched the movie, did the cell house tour, and wandered around the island.  The park is well laid out and the audio tour is almost as good as the one at Pearl Harbor.  It was done in such a manner that the girls enjoyed themselves a good bit.  It was also cool that it was nesting season so we saw all kinds of baby seabirds.  Since there are no predators on the island, getting close to them was not a problem.  We spent several hours on the Rock and by 12:25 we had started back to town.  Due to the frigid conditions, it felt right to buy hot chocolate for the family as we headed in.

Having enjoyed ourselves on Alcatraz for the morning, it was time for lunch.  I had bragged to everyone about how great clam chowder in a bread bowl is.  We found Boudin’s and I got each of the girls their own bowl.  They promptly destroyed the things.  I mean it was a chowder massacre.  There is something cool about having sourdough bread that is still made from the initial mother loaf first made in 1849.  Of course I had to explain to Lucy and Ethel that the bread was not that old, that it was indeed made fresh today.  We kicked around Pier 39 for a bit catching the sea lions sunning themselves.  Having done this and spent a few bucks on souvenirs, we went back to the hotel so the boss could handle some soccer mom business.

One of the things that the boss really wanted to do was to ride the cable cars.  At 6 dollars a ride per person, we needed to figure out a way to make it worth our while.  So, we took a cab to Union Square, just past the turnaround spot for the cars.  We were able to grab a step on the edge and ride full-on local style.  While I was initially opposed to the idea, this actually ended up being one of the more fun experiences of the trip.  Going downhill and uphill on a cable car is quite the experience.  Our ride ended near the bay and we walked down so the girls could have one final dance on the beach.  By now, we we were hungry for dinner so we headed towards the Fog Harbor Fish House.  The boss and I split the steamer platter for 2.  The food was great and our vacation had come to an end.

Back at the hotel, we packed our bags and prepared for our 4:30 wake up call and our time to bid farewell to California.