Cable cars, motorcycles and boats.

Life has been busy since we landed in Bethel Island.  All the workampers are great folks, we get together often, actually the past 2 Sundays we have had wonderful cookouts and it promises to be a great summer. 

Through Facebook I found out that a friend of ours from back home was in San Francisco so we made plans to meet her and her friend and do some sight seeing.  First stop was Alcatraz.

From San Francisco it looks so small but it is bigger than you think, 12 acres.  Today it is a National Park but first served as an Army fortress then as the famous maxium-security federal penitentiary.  The last inmates left the island on March 21, 1963, it was closed due to deteriorating buildings and high operating costs.  I think we will have to watch the movie "Escape from Alcatraz" again now that we have been there.

                                                   Nikki Anderson and me on the Rock.

A typical cell.

Who is this criminal?

This is the cell of the famous breakout in 1962.

Looking at San Francisco from the rock.

                                                                 
Time to get off the Rock and head into the city.  We wandered through Fisherman's Wharf at Pier 39 checking out the sights.

These sea lions were the coolest thing.

San Francisco is known for it's sour dough bread at Boudins.  They can do some awesome things with bread such as this gator.  We bought some bread and it was wonderful.  Nikki tell Brad the garlic volcano was fabulous.

OK lets see, Alcatraz check, Pier 39 check, sea lions check, Boudins check now onto the street and cable cars.

This is where they turn the cable cars around.  It was such a hoot to ride them and I want to go back!

We jumped off the cable car, said good bye to Nikki and Brad, jumped on a street car headed back to the pier to get the truck and go home..

Street and cable cars check!

  Thanks Nikki and Brad for a great day.

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The couple that lives behinds us are Sally and Dave.  They invited us to go on a motorcycle ride with them and of course we said yes.  Our destination was Sonora in the Sierra Nevada Foothills in the heart of gold county.  There was 7 bikes altogether after we made a few stops picking up people.  The country side was lush and green as we passed by orchards, vineyards and farms.

We stopped in one small town call Angels Camp to have a cold one.  Walking to the local watering hole I noticed these plaques in the sidewalk.

In 1865, Samuel l. Clemens (Mark Twain) penned The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, a tall tale of the life and happenings of the gold rush town, Angels Camp. The narrator details a story he heard in a tavern. It is about a frog, Danl Webster, who could out jump any other frog, and a man, Jim Smiley, who was the curiousest man about always betting on anything.  The story was published and delighted audiences worldwide but didn't appear to have much impact on Calaveras County until much later.  Today at the Calaveras County Fair there will be 10,000 frogs entried.  Mark Twain lived outside of town on Jackass Hill in a cabin, today you can still see remains of it.

It was a great day for a ride and we enjoyed making new friends.  On the way home we crossed over the bridge I spoke about in my last post, remember the narrow one with semi trucks, well here it is.

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Friday evening Larry & Barbara invited us next door for dinner (they are workampers and our neighbors)  and to meet their friends Bill & Patty.  We had a very tasty dinner and then made plans for Saturday to go boating on the Delta in Bill & Patti's boat.  It was a perfect day to be on the water.  But I have to say it was kind of strange to be in a slough riding along and next to you on the levee cars are passing by.

Our ride for the day.

                                                                        Barbara & Larry

A captain needs to pay attention to the nautical charts when on the water or this could happen.

The captain smashed his face into the dash board once he hit hard water, a call was made to the Coast Guard and he was rescued, then brought to Sugar Barge where an ambulance was waiting.  Once he was checked out it was determined that he was drunk he had a ride in a cop car instead of a ambulance.  Not a good day on the water for this guy!

I want to thank Bill & Patty for a great day on the water.

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Oh and lets see I also planted my garden in the past two weeks.

Tomatoes and peppers.

So as you can see life has been busy.

I will leave you with this and thanks for following.