June 22 (Day 20)

Personally, I had been looking forward to this day for awhile, the day we would visit Alcatraz! We took the bus to the loading dock, and took a ferry to the most infamous of all high security prisons, ever. The tickets included personal audio tours that gave incredible insight into the prison. We saw the cells in which the men spent their lives, and even heard them tell their stories through the audio tour. It was incredible to step back and imagine how their lives must have been. I don’t know about everyone else, but it made me want to stay in school and just say no hehe J But on a more serious note, it was almost heartbreaking to hear of their extreme punishment. We also got to hear of the escapes that took place over the years that Alcatraz was in operation as a prison. Some were humorous, some heart breaking and some made you want to slap the stupidity out of those men. However, an air of mystery lingered there, and the layers of history gave you chill bumps.

After the tour, we loaded back onto the ferry and made our way back to our hotel where we hopped into the van and drove for several hours to Eureka, California where we stopped for the night.

June 23 (Day 21)

After our usual morning routine, we packed back into the van and drove about an hour and a half to the Redwood national forest, picked out a camp ground and set up camp. After lounging around the camp ground for awhile, we ate lunch and then drove a little ways to Fern Canyon. We didn’t actually make it all the way to the canyon, due to the frigid streams you had to walk through (and we only have one pair of shoes each!) but the short walk there was beautiful. After the trail, we drove back down towards the beach. It was beautiful, fog covered the area and although we all nearly froze, Kyle and Blake had fun digging in the sand and the rest of us enjoyed picking our favorite of the thousands of unique rocks that had come ashore during low tide (no shells, just rocks!). After we left the beach, we made our way back to the camp ground and settled in for the night.

Best part of the day? It’s a tie, between the beach and seeing all the elk (Mom counted 35, and several calves were there as well).