Day 25 - Escape to Alcatraz

In accordance with wind down week regulations, the J's once again had a lie in until the late morning today. Joe's trip to the bathroom before 10am fortunately went unnoticed by the authorities, so he escaped federal punishment (a young Frank Morris, if you like) by the skin of his teeth. Along with John, he then masqueraded as a law abiding citizen as they both alighted their beds shortly before 11am. After this initial integration into society, they were served up their daily breakfast rations, pushed through the breakfast bar.

As recreational hour began, the J's took advantage of their hard earned swimming privileges (only available to the most well behaved convicts). This saw the continuation of yesterday's inmates free form diving contest, the results of which are a source of great pride between cellmates. John raised the bar with his backwards half twist with a two-handed wave, all though Joe took no prisoners and responded with a full twist with a single-handed wave. The judges were left undecided as to who should take home the prize of a second helping of grits at dinner, so, once the jury had been consulted, it was their strong conviction that this should be split between them. Satisfied, the J's returned to their cells to continue the day's routine.

As you may have gathered, there is a prison theme running through today's prose. The reason for this of course, is that today we paid a visit to the historical landmark that is Alcatraz Island - most famous for it's years as a maximum security prison between 1934 and 1963. As the famous quote goes - "If you broke the rules, you went to prison. If you broke the prison rules, you went to Alcatraz". Famous inmates included Robert "The Birdman" Stroud, Al "Scarface" Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, Joseph "Crime Wave" McCrave and John "Hammer Head" Coxhead.





Following a ferry trip across the bay from Marin to San Francisco, we then boarded another boat to carry us over to Alcatraz. We were particularly excited, having watched the famous movie "Escape From Alcatraz" earlier this week (as regular readers will of course know). The visit was an immensely fascinating experience, just to walk around 'the rock' was a strange, eerie sensation. The highlight was a 1 hour award winning audio tour around the cell house which not only gave detailed descriptions and historic information on all areas, but also included voice clips from past inmates and officers. This gave it real depth and evoked a ghostly, intense atmosphere. Just to see the living conditions of such a high-security prison cell was a powerful, hard-hitting insight (the deep indentations upon the wall of 'Hammer Head' Coxhead's cell are still visible). Also, the tour provided us with the true story behind the 1962 escape (featured in the film we had watched) and showed us the very cells used in the plot. For all those unfamiliar with the 'dummy head' escape, its an incredible tale, well worth reading about, and we'd strongly recommend seeing the film.




Once we'd fully exhausted the sites and tours that Alcatraz had to offer, we made our way back to the boat. Before journeying back to Marin, we called in at 'Peet's Coffee & Tea'. Set up in the 60's, Peet's was the original inspiration for, now rival, Starbucks and is a very popular coffee house, especially within California. As new devoted Mocha fans, both J's ordered one of the White Chocolate variety (we thought we'd resist the tuxedo today) and were both of full of praise for both its smooth texture and spellbinding taste.




Around 8pm, we finally arrived back in Marin and were greeted by Bob who kindly collected us from the pier and brought us home to a delicious meal of lasagna that Mary had prepared. We've since had a relaxing evening of freestyle video viewing and laid back conversation.

Sadly the prison curfew has now been called for the night so its time to head for our bunks before Warden catches us sneakily using the computer in his office,

Inmates #J426 and #J513