Mr. 5 Minutes and the Great Trip Out West

Californian Elitist

Well-Known Member
I would love to try it this trip, but our littlest one may not do well in the car for that long. There's also a Jelly Belly factory up there! We are trying to allocate some money for a hotel near Disneyland, though! For part of the time... and kinda near

Oh not this October! I was talking about in a few years. I can't go this year. When I go back to Frisco, I want to have enough money to do things, mainly shopping.:D Jelly Belly sounds like a deal.

Best Western directly across the street. Did you want something close? Or does it not matter, since you guys will have a car?
 

Cosmic Commando

Well-Known Member
Oh not this October! I was talking about in a few years. I can't go this year. When I go back to Frisco, I want to have enough money to do things, mainly shopping.:D Jelly Belly sounds like a deal.

Best Western directly across the street. Did you want something close? Or does it not matter, since you guys will have a car?

I would like to stay at one of those ones directly across the street, but we're most likely going to Hotwire the absolute cheapest place. Based on my research, I think it's the Travelodge Anaheim International, which isn't awful.
 

Californian Elitist

Well-Known Member
I would like to stay at one of those ones directly across the street, but we're most likely going to Hotwire the absolute cheapest place. Based on my research, I think it's the Travelodge Anaheim International, which isn't awful.

I'll make sure to look for some cheap hotel. I found one for 60 a night a couple of months ago, but the hotel's name is escaping me.
 

ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Kind of jealous of your sunny pictures since we had gloom, fog and some rain. Your tea garden pictures are really pretty too, it is a pretty and calming spot though.
 

teacherlady19

Active Member
We stayed at Candy Cane Inn -- 5 to 10 minute walk or take the shuttle, but at $160/night, it wasn't cheap. Our daughter and husband stayed at Travelodge Anaheim Inn and Suite on Disneyland Drive, for $120. In July it was the best price they could get on anything in walking distance from DL that didn't also charge for parking. (Stovall's is about the same price, but adds $10 for parking.)
 

popsicletrees

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Beautiful photos. Looks like it was gorgeous weather during your visit.

It was beautiful weather during our entire trip!

Love the pictures!! Fantastic views!

Thank you!

OK, I just have to get this off my chest... the character that they use for A makes an L sound and the backwards N makes a long E sound. Phew! :bookworm:

Seriously, awesome pictures and thanks for the report! I have never been to San Francisco but I would like to fix that some time.

That is an interesting bit of information.

Thank you for reading. San Francisco is definitely worth the trip. I'd gladly go back again and again.
 

popsicletrees

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Kind of jealous of your sunny pictures since we had gloom, fog and some rain. Your tea garden pictures are really pretty too, it is a pretty and calming spot though.

I heard from several people that we were experiencing such unusual weather. It was gloomier the day that we left, but it was perfect while we were there. I loved the tea garden. We spend several hours there.

We stayed at Candy Cane Inn -- 5 to 10 minute walk or take the shuttle, but at $160/night, it wasn't cheap. Our daughter and husband stayed at Travelodge Anaheim Inn and Suite on Disneyland Drive, for $120. In July it was the best price they could get on anything in walking distance from DL that didn't also charge for parking. (Stovall's is about the same price, but adds $10 for parking.)

That's where we stayed. We got a premium room, and they brought us breakfast each morning. We did use a AAA discount. I don't know how much it was per night because we actually shared a room with my parents during most of our trip because we were gone for so long. We split the overall cost of all of our rooms.
 

popsicletrees

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
I'm not sure why I didn't just finish out our second day because I only have one more photo left, but here we go finishing day two and into day three.

We went back to the hotel and all met up to go to dinner. We went to a Japanese restaurant near Fisherman's Wharf. Jordan and I were on a quest for California sushi. We live in a landlocked state and eat sushi nearly once a week as it is. So, we couldn't wait to try out some places in a coastal state. I forgot to mention that the night before Jordan went out on a run once we got back to our room. After his run he went to a place called Flying Ninja Sushi for a hand roll, so we went back so that I could get some sushi too.

Flying Ninja is small, super small. The bar area is probably the biggest area of the restaurant. They only had one waitress too. We were fortunate that it wasn't crowded that night, but our party of 6 took up nearly all of the space there. That night we ordered a California Roll, Eel Roll (always a favorite), and a shrimp tempura roll with mango and strawberries on top. We had some nigiri with it.

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Jordan ordered another roll that had banana on it. I wasn't a fan of that one. He was on his own with that one. After dinner we went to an ice cream shop called Norman's. They served locally made ice cream. We met Norman. He was really nice.

The next morning we were up and packed early. We had tickets to go to Alcatraz before heading out of San Francisco. We had tried getting tickets to the last tour of the day, but you have to get those months in advance. So, we took the tickets to the earliest tour and set out on a downhill march to the pier. This day we were experiencing more traditional San Francisco weather. It was overcast, foggy, and chilly. As we were taking the ferry out to the island we actually saw swimmer's in the water training for a triathlon that weekend. It was pure dedication.

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When we arrived a park ranger was there to give us some details about where to go and a short history of the island. Unfortunately the ranger never mentioned in what cells some of the more infamous prisoners of Alcatraz stayed. I thought though that throughout the tour those would be pointed out.

Baby seagulls:

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This is a photograph of the morgue. There was a sign that stated that two women died at Alcatraz. Many families of the guards actually lived on the island, which I found really interesting. Some guards commuted to the island every day though. The sign stated that one woman committed suicide on the island, but it never stated how the other woman died. I did a quick search, but I haven't been able to find anything. It definitely leaves an air of mystery. Although it could have been from completely natural causes.

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popsicletrees

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
We only had a short time on the island before we had to be back at the hotel to be picked up to go to the car rental place. So, after exploring the grounds for only a short amount of time we went inside to start the tour. At the beginning of the tour each person is given a personal audio tour. This was a great and simple way to go throughout Alcatraz. It made the experience great and was super easy to navigate.

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The recess area

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This is where solitary confinement was located

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We did learn that Al Capone, the Birdman, and Machine Gun Kelly were all here at some point, but they didn't tell us in which cells.

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The doors were chained open so I couldn't keep him there.
 

popsicletrees

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Here's the library

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This is the gun gallery that was raided during the Battle of Alcatraz in 1946.

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I think one of the saddest parts of the tour was seeing how close the city was to Alcatraz. During the audio tour interviews from inmates would play. Several of them said that on certain nights, especially New Year's Eve, they could hear parties going on in the city. Now I know good guys weren't hanging out at Alcatraz, but I couldn't imagine how torturous it would be to be so close yet so isolated from the rest of the world. And that's about as sympathetic as I get.

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These are the remains of the warden's house. There was a bird's nest in the chimney.

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popsicletrees

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
These are the cells from the 1962 escape from Alcatraz, which I think is a really cool story. Plus, the Mythbusters episode about it was pretty amazing.

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Outside of the cells where they dug into the wall:

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This is a view of the kitchen. If you notice to the left there are outlines of where the knives should be. This was so the guards would know if any knives went missing. They said that several knives went missing throughout the time that Alcatraz was in operation.

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Visiting Alcatraz was definitely one of the highlights of the trip. It was creepy, eerie, and made me appreciate being a law abiding citizen that much more. The tour was very well done though, and it was really cool to hear the stories told by the guards and prisoners. During the tour they never told us the cell numbers of some of their more infamous inmates, but they justified it by saying that they moved them around so much that there isn't just one cell associated with a prisoner. Still it would have been nice to just see where Al Capone slept for a bit. During the beginning of the audio tour someone whispers "hey" into your ear. I looked at Jordan and asked, "Did you just hear someone whisper 'hey'?" He said, "Yes...I mean, no. No!" He gave me a hard time for that one. I would do the tour here again, but I would love to do a night tour next time.

After the tour we went back to the mainland. The limo service we hired at the beginning of our trip picked us up again and took us to the airport so that we couldn't pick up our rental. From there we made the really long trek to Yosemite. We stayed that night at a Best Western in Oakhurst. It was actually a charming little town and a nice hotel. We all 6 were able to share a room comfortably. The next morning this was outside of our hotel room. Yep, we were definitely out of the city.

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popsicletrees

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
So on the morning of day 4 we woke up to really beautiful surroundings in Oakhurst. We were about 20 minutes from the gate to Yosemite and arrived pretty early that morning.

Our first stop was to see the giant sequoias. We got out to walk some of the trails here. I will add that my left foot was killing me today. I felt excruciating pain each time I put my heel down. It was awful, and I was quite frustrated with myself. Jordan and I are very active, and the last thing that I wanted was to feel like I was slowing anyone else or myself down. There was so much to explore here. I didn't need this! I actually ended up limping around for the entire day. I couldn't put much weight at all on my heel. I have no idea what caused this, but it stayed this way for the rest of our trip. The only possible explanation that I have is that I have low arches and we had been walking hills for the past three days. So, if you plan on going to San Francisco be sure to wear very supportive shoes.

Anyways, enough of my whining, onto the trees!

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Jordan, my mom, and my aunt

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I believe that this one is the Grizzly Giant

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popsicletrees

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
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Aww, my parents

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I was hoping that while we were here we would see some wildlife. I really wanted to see a bear, not a bear up-close, but far enough away that I can tell it's a bear when looking through binoculars. Well, there was no bear, but we did see a deer as we were walking back to our car from the sequoias.

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The deer came within 15 feet of us at one point. Several people had stopped on the trail by this point to watch him. It was very stunning to see this close. He stopped when he came to the trail and then seemed to notice that there were people just standing around watching him. At this point he took a leap from just standing still and hopped a fence on the other side of the trail.

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popsicletrees

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Afterwards we headed over to Yosemite Valley. It was breathtaking!

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I believe this is Bridalveil Fall.

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We stopped for lunch before taking the trail to Yosemite Falls.

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This is the lower part of the falls. You couldn't even see the upper part from here.

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My dad put his feet in the water there and said that it was really cold, almost unbearably so. It was the warmest day that we had experienced all trip. It was in the mid-80's, which I thought it would be cooler since we were in higher elevations. One of the best parts though was that there were hardly any bugs around, at least I didn't find myself swatting at things. Yosemite Falls was our last actual stop inside of the park. We had a long drive ahead of us, and we planned on exiting the park on the side near Mammoth Falls. So the rest of the photos that you will see were taken from the safety of the backseat of a van.
 

popsicletrees

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
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We did stop briefly in Mammoth Falls for some photos. It was pretty but cold.

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We drove for several more hours until we arrived in Bishop, California. It was in the middle of nowhere. We stayed at the Creekside Inn, which was a surprisingly pleasant hotel. Jordan and I had a king-sized bed in our very large room, which looked like it had been recently renovated. It was very nice and actually had a creek running alongside the hotel. Plus, the breakfast for the next day was the best breakfast of our entire trip. They even had cookies (fresh baked) out for people throughout the day. If you ever find yourself in Bishop, for some reason, stay at Creekside.
 

Californian Elitist

Well-Known Member
Your photos are so beautiful. Yosemite is gorgeous.

BTW, I agree with you in regards to being a law-abiding citizen. I have no plans on committing a serious crime and landing myself in prison.
 

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