So Long, Farewell . . .

Taylor expresses her sadness at having to leave Aunt Dan, Uncle B and Elise-the-Niece with a “tear” from her water glass.

It had to happen. None of us expected it to happen so quickly, though. After six days of non-stop activity and lots of fun, it was time for Conor and Taylor to fly home. So that we didn’t focus on it too much, we filled our last day with more non-stop activity to distract us.



Our first order of the day (after stopping at a yummy bakery for breakfast) was a trip out to the Rock — Alcatraz. It is definitely one of the “things to do” when in San Francisco. Run by the National Park Service now, Alcatraz gets over a million visitors a year and going on a Saturday, we were accompanied by many of them on the ten-minute ride across the bay.


The guard tower by the dock.

Conor, Taylor and Elise picked up another Junior Ranger packet and got to work right away. Conor had originally thought to not do this one, but the lure of a plastic badge was just too much for him to resist. Next time you see Conor and Taylor, ask to see their badges!



Included in the price of the ticket is an audio tour of the main prison. It is a well done 45-minute presentation that moves you through the cell blocks, dining hall, recreation yard, solitary confinement, library and guard areas. Things I learned: in the ceiling of the dining hall were canisters of tear gas in case the prisoners started to riot, inmates at this prison were treated to hot showers to prevent them from acclimating to cold water so that they would not attempt to swim across the bay in an effort to escape, in 1962 three prisoners escaped using spoons to dig through the concrete walls and were never found, and the prisoners could smell the chocolate from the Ghirardelli factory in San Francisco.


This is one of the cells from the 1962 escape. The prisoner dug behind the grate over time to get through the wall.


The escapees climbed these pipes to get out on the roof and escape the prison.

After Alcatraz, we headed uptown on the street car to get Taylor’s iPod fixed. She got it right before she came here and it conked out unexpectedly earlier this week. We made an appointment at the Genius Bar at the Apple store and it turns out her iPod was corrupted so they replaced it. Now she has an iPod from San Francisco — how cool is that?!


Downtown on a Saturday.

We took the street car back to the Fisherman’s Wharf and walked the rest of the way to Ghirardelli Square, not that we needed more sugar or anything! Before we went for chocolate, though, we treated ourselves to a delicious dinner at McCormick & Kuleto’s. Everyone had a fish entree of some kind and all were scrumptious. Elise, of course, stayed true to herself and had linguine with butter. Conor was flabbergasted that she would to this, but Bobby and I were not surprised. We were planning on going over to Ghirardelli for ice cream sundaes for dessert but made the mistake of looking at the dessert menu at the restaurant. Taylor and I split a Dark Chocolate Bag, Conor had a crustless Key Lime Pie and Elise had vanilla ice cream. Bobby mooched off us all.







The Dark Chocolate Bag was filled with white chocolate mousse and whipped cream. The bag was surrounded by an orange sauce with berries and drizzled chocolate. So delicious! Before dessert was served, the waiter brought a steak knife to our table. He later explained that it was for the bottom of the bag. The chocolate on the bottom is over 1/2″ thick. I tried to saw through the chocolate but was unsuccessful due to the movement of the chocolate on the orange sauce. The only way to get through was to approach the task in a Psycho-esque way. With a firm grip on the knife, a straight downward jab and constant pressure, I was able to break the bag into pieces. Taylor found this hilarious.



We walked around a little after dinner, stopping to shop at Ghirardhelli and watch an artist paint an otherwordly picture complete with planets, the San Francisco skyline and the Golden Gate bridge — all with spray paint and a few tools.



Finally, it was time to head to the airport. We arrived in plenty of time and had another 40 minutes together before Conor, Taylor and I went through security to the gate. As soon as we got to the gate, they boarded the plane and they were gone.

Conor and Taylor are great kids. They are helpful and thoughtful and incredibly fun to be around. It was a complete pleasure to have them with us this week and we’re so glad they chose to spend their spring break with us. We’re hoping they can make it out to see us one more time before we head home, this time with my sister and her husband. We sure hope they can.