Janet's in Jail AGAIN -- Geesh!

Alcatraz

Everything about The Inn at Oyster Point is wonderful.  It was so peaceful and cool here last night. They don’t have air conditioning in this hotel and none was needed.  I don’t sleep well anyhow but this was by far my best night’s sleep in a long time. We awoke to an amazing view and the radiant sunlight shining in our room that overlooks the bay.  It was a beautiful morning. We even had our breakfast delivered to our room -for no charge.  They ask you to fill out a menu and hang it outside your door the night before and it gets delivered to your room at the time you request.  This is just one of the perks you get here and it costs no more than a regular hotel room on Interstate 40.  How lucky are we???
Today was the day we went to Alcatraz.  It took Ed and me over 30 plus years to get to “The Rock.”  The first time we were told it wasn’t open to the public, another time we couldn’t get tickets.   But this time we were finally able to go after weeks and weeks of planning and getting the tickets early enough so we could get to Alcatraz for this particular day.  How exciting for us!!!  Ed asked me for the camera when we were in the Pfeil’s car and I took it out of my purse to give it to him. Apparently he was going to take some pictures on the way in to San Francisco.   I totally forgot that I gave it to him.  As we were getting on the ferry to go over to Alcatraz, Ed asked me for the camera.  I looked all over my purse for it, but the camera never got back into my purse…. - so yes, you guessed it, I did not have my camera for our tour that we planned and planned and planned.  OMG, I hardly ever leave without the camera when we are traveling.  It is literally attached somehow to my jeans or whatever pants I am wearing for the day.  The day the camera went into my purse is the day that the camera gets left in the car and I don’t have it.  …That my friends, is a real bummer when you are finally taking this great tour of Alcatraz. Yes, the tour we have waited to take for over 30 years.  Luckily for us, Jandora and Bill had their camera with them.  They took all the pictures on Alcatraz for us.  Can you imagine how bad we felt…
Alcatraz was amazing.  We had an audio tour of “The Rock.”  I highly recommend this tour and if I ever get back to San Francisco, I will take the tour again.  If you ever get to Alcatraz, make sure you wear a warm coat because it is extremely cold over there. My friend, Elaine, told me the evening tours are a lot of fun.  Hmmm, perhaps the next time….  At the end of the tour, we met a gentleman who lived on the island of Alcatraz for a few years.  His dad was a guard and he was the paper boy on the island.   He ended up going to law school, becoming a lawyer, retiring, and writing a bunch of books about Alcatraz.  He was a remarkable man and I bought one of his books.  I hope it is as good as I think it is going to be.  The gentleman was so interesting to talk to and I wanted to read about his life as a child on Alcatraz.
Janet, in jail AGAIN, Alcatraz this time
Our next destination was the Ghirardelli Chocolate Store. I wanted so badly to go there this whole trip.  We walked and walked and walked until we got to that destination.  I was so tired….  I walked in the wonderful chocolate store and was ready to buy some fine chocolates but the line was so darn long to pay that I walked right out.  One of my pet peeves is to wait in line to pay for something.  You just shouldn’t have to wait in line to give someone your money.   I did manage to get a free sample and was totally happy with that. 

For months, Janet wanted to go to this certain pizza place in San Francisco, that she and Bill went to on their last trip here, but she just didn’t know the name of the place.  We tried to describe the place to some local people to see if they knew the name of it. Janet even tried to search on Bill’s Droid for this pizza place but it was like trying to find a needle in a haystack. 
Ed & Mare (tired) at The Stinking Rose
There are an incredible number of pizza restaurants in the San Francisco area and we weren’t having much luck. Then, I had a brilliant idea to text Marie, my daughter, and see if she could find this certain pizza parlor that had curtains hanging outside their booth in the San Francisco area.  I figured while we were touring Alcatraz, she could search the internet for it and maybe come up with some answers for us at a later time. Well, it wasn’t five minutes later that she had the name of the pizza restaurant, the directions to the place from the pier we were at, a map of the city so we wouldn’t get lost, and a friend that she knows who highly recommended this place.  How cool was that???  The kid knows her stuff.  So we ended up going to The Stinking Rose Restaurant, all thanks to Marie.  By the way, it was worth the “search” effort.  The food was great, atmosphere was quaint, and the company was wonderful.  We had a great day…