San Fran Baby!

One of the best parts about this lifestyle is getting the chance to spend more time with friends and family, and California has been no exception!
I was able to have lunch with three other members of our outstanding fifth grade team from 2007! It just so happened that Evelyn Frantz and Beth Douglas were both living and working in CA. Jane Owen and her husband Terry met us out on the road a couple weeks back and we were all traveling together.  We all had lunch and had a great time catching up. It was fantastic to be together.

A few days later we rode the train into San Francisco with Jane and Terry. They hung out and explored the pier while we took a tour of Alcatraz. It was a fantastic tour, well worth the cost! We took a water taxi over to the island. It's a national park so of course, we had to GET A BADGE!!!!
The boys claim this was their very favorite tour. I have to agree, it was very intense, and the format was fantastic. Upon arriving in the prison each person is given a headset with an audio tour.

Isn't he special???

The tour is narrated but also has background noises added in that make it feel very realistic.There were many times I turned around looking for the closing cell door!We saw first hand the tools they used to try and break out, to SUCCEED in breaking out and learned how to make a shiv! Yay for homeschool!

This is one of the dummy heads they made for the escape! Creepy!!!

We were able to go into the solitary confinement cells and well as the regular cells. We saw the visitation area and toured the grounds. 
    While there we were able to see an art installation by artist Ai Weiwei who is a Chinese artist and activist. His work speaks to the time he spent imprisoned and focuses on freedom of expression. The pieces were amazing, clearly but the way they utilized legos to create the pictures of prisoners of conscious was genius. At the end we were able to send postcards to prisoners of consciousness from around the world. It was a fantastic learning experience for the whole family and had a huge impact on us.