We made the mistake of taking advice from a guidebook and visiting “family-friendly” Black Stallion Winery.  No tours were available, but hey, it was mid-day, mid-week, so what did we expect?   There was no family friendliness to be had and I was very surprised by the staff’s lack of congeniality.  Thankfully, Peter & I just shared the $20 tasting (remember when the tastings were free??) and didn’t waste a whole lot of time or energy there.  Since I’m writing this after-the-fact, I have a suspicion that tomorrow’s winery tours will be a whole lot better.

Black Stallion Winery. At least the entrance was pretty

After the meager sips of wine, we headed to Oxbow Public Market, home of the famous Three Twins Ice Cream. Yeah, I had to ask, so here’s the story: the company was founded by three people – twin brothers and a woman who is also a twin. She happened to marry a twin too. Too many twos. Since the girls and I are also three twins, we just couldn’t resist.

Three twins at Three Twins Ice Cream

Absurdity

Yeah

What trip to San Francisco would be complete without a visit to Alcatraz Island? Definitely a place to bring the kids, and not only as a not-so-gentle reminder to stay in school, but because it was pretty cool. And a little educational too.

We had a great tour guide who was dressed in Civil War garb, complete with a replica musket rifle. We learned that Alcatraz Island was originally named La Isla de Los Alcatraces (Island of the Sea Birds) by a Spaniard in 1775. Our guide had some interesting stories about life on the island when it was a military fort and prison, as well as the infamous federal prison. During the military era, the soldier’s wives wished to beautify the island and had some military prisoners bring soil from nearby Angel Island in order to plant gardens on Alcatraz.  Originally, there had been no soil there, just rock.

Rachel was particularly intrigued by the great escape of 1962. As re-told by her:  Four inmates devised an elaborate escape plan and spent almost a year using spoons to chip away the concrete around the air vents in each of their cells to create escape tunnels. The night of the great escape, they used some of the crumbled concrete, soap, and stolen hair from the barbershop to fabricate fake heads to hide under their covers to fool the guard doing nightly headcount. They used an idea from a mechanic magazine to make a boat and lifejackets by using raincoats. One of the inmates was unable to tunnel out the last remaining few feet because an iron pipe was in his way.  His co-conspirators looked at each other, and took off without him.  No one knows what really happened, all of this information came from this 4th man.  The boat was found, as were the three lifejackets that the escapees used, but to this day, the inmates have never been seen or heard from again…

Alcatraz from the ferry

Flowers at Alcatraz

Pretty view from Alcatraz

View of Alcatraz from Coit Tower

Former social hall at Alcatraz

Apartments for the prison guards

The Hole

Not the Ritz

Alcatraz view from below

One of five guard towers at Alcatraz

View looking toward Bay Bridge at Alcatraz

Warden’s house on Alcatraz

Another guard house on Alcatraz

Mugshots at Alcatraz

After serving our time at Alcatraz, we decided to hoof it up to Coit Tower.  And do I mean hoof.  It was A LOT of steps.  Like 400 something, we lost count.  It was cool to walk the steps rather than drive on the road, because we got to see some houses that are only accessible by the steps.  I guess those people don’t move very often.  Certainly, no one plays the piano.

Coit Tower

This was after the 200+ steps we had already climbed

Are we there yet?

Cute dogs on the way up the steps

Houses only accessible by steps

Lots and lots of them

CLOSED!

We found  Point Bonita lighthouse near Marin Headlands that was very cool to see. Sadly, the tunnel to get there closed… literally minutes before we got there. But hey, we are used to that and it didn’t stop us from checking things out.

Since only one of the four of us has ever stepped foot on or in a submarine, the girls & I thought it was pretty cool to check out the USS Pampanito at Fisherman’s Wharf. The tight quarters, tiny bunks (many perched precariously above torpedos), and lack of sunshine or fresh air doesn’t seem like a lot of fun.

USS Pampanito

What a crew

Watch out for the Liberty ship behind you!

Summer the Riveter

Rachel the Riveter

We also toured the SS Jeremiah O’Brien, one of only two surviving operational Liberty ships. This ship was built in South Portland, ME in just 56 days! We were able to see the engine room, which was used for filming the Titanic.

Summer particularly enjoyed seeing the laundry room.

We then ventured on to Pier 39 for the sea lion show. Be sure to check out the video on Rachel’s page. We decided to call this territorial sea lion by the name of Rufus.

This tree has seen better days. But, it was still pretty cool to see. Sadly, we couldn’t drive the car through (not with a roof rack and kayak on top) and the motorhome couldn’t even fit in the parking lot, so we ended up just walking through.

This tree, like several other drive-through trees in the area, are either in or near the Redwood National Forest or State Parks. We drove along the Avenue of the Giants to get up and close and personal with some of these big guys.

Rachel and Summer on stump at Shrine Drive-Thru tree

Rachel and Summer at Walk-Thru Stump

According to my bff, Wikipedia, “Dolos (plural dolosse) is a concrete block in a complex geometric shape weighing up to 20 tons, used in great numbers to protect harbour walls from the erosive force of ocean waves. They were developed in East London, a port city in South Africa, in 1963 and are found in millions around the world.”

Dolosse at Crescent City jetty

These dolosse were found at the end of the jetty at Crescent City, near the beautiful Battery Point lighthouse. As you can see from the pictures, the hazard signs kept us away.

Looking down jetty at Crescent City

Dolosse on jetty

Battery Point Lighthouse from jetty

Battery Point Lighthouse

It’s easy to see why the Battery Point lighthouse is much photographed. It was very pretty, and is still a working, occupied lighthouse. With a keeper and a resident ghost too. The lighthouse is only accessible at low tide. Must make grocery shopping interesting.

Ok, Budget Travel, FOX News, NBC News, and Yahoo Travel all may have said it first, but we agree that Port Townsend is indeed one of the coolest small towns in America. There were cute shops, restaurants, and lots of great historic buildings in the downtown area. Plus, after driving right through Forks, and just spending a night in Port Angeles, it wasn’t too hard to be impressed with this cute town on the Olympic Peninsula.

We stayed at Fort Worden State Park and had a great time exploring the fort and surrounding grounds there.

Beach driftwood at Fort Worden

Lighthouse at Fort Worden

Beach at Fort Worden