A visit to the penitentiary

This was my third time to Alcatraz, and although I seem to really enjoy it and try to pay attention, every time I take the tour again it seems like new information. It’s possible that I have just naturally forgotten things in the 15 or so years since Jen and I visited during our Pacific Coast Highway tour. I would say this is probably the case, but I do suspect that maybe they change up the stories a little. It used to be that one guy maybe escaped but probably drowned. Now it’s three guys who got out on to the roof and disappeared and nobody knows where they went. Also, the Marines stormed the building to quell a riot and dropped grenades through a hole in the roof? I think they have Marvel writers working on the audio tour narrative. Next time it will be Iron Man locking Capone back into his cell after Scarface drinks ionically charged bathtub gin and mutates into The Big Boss who can control minions and melt steel with his brain. (The new cell will be made out of Starktanium alloy.)

Anyway, even if they embellish the story a little now and then, it’s a great tour with gravelly-voiced guards right there in your ears and former convicts chiming in now and then. The place is physically remarkable in its gravity, being plunked in the middle of a scenic cornucopia.

Where they have definitely made improvements on Alcatraz is in the plants. Apparently volunteers have been revitalizing the gardens since my last visit. Hundreds of the specimens planted by guards’ families and inmates alike had survived neglect since the prison closed in the 60s, and these have been brought back into refinement. Currently on the island there is an art exhibit by a former political prisoner from China and I think at least part of the idea is that beauty in a prison is supposed to be a jarring contrast. The rejuvenated landscaping along the walkway up to the prison performed this task at least as successfully as the art exhibit did, the various flowering (even in November!) specimens stood out beautifully against the concrete and rusted metal of the prison and fort installations.

We did not take the gardens tour (I did not think the kids would be up for an hour of hearing about plants), but we saw plenty of beautiful things that seemed even too exotic for California just in the normal course of walking about. Here are some pictures:

Mist shrouds the island as we approach.

I think the girls liked it, too, but it was hard to tell. It is a somber place, even with all the flowers, and the girls didn’t have that much to say afterwards. The weather added to the gravity of it all. It was foggy enough that you couldn’t see the island from the mainland, or vice versa. It was very different from the first day here, when the visibility was excellent. One really felt isolated on that island today, whereas yesterday you could see clearly from half the streets in downtown San Francisco.

Upward mobility and downward car chases

Leave a reply

San Francisco can be and often is broken down into contingent parts based on ethnic groups. Chinatown. Japantown. North Beach, which is like little Italy. Broadway, which my friend Kevin told me is dedicated to, well, broads. The Tenderloin is a section of the city which is where the butchers live. Or maybe the cattle ranches. Jen won’t take us there ever since she and Charles got chased by unsavory types, probably butchers, a few years ago.

Another way in which I believe the city can be more accurately segmented is by altitude. Some people who have been here before may be familiar with the bayside attractions. These are basically at sea level (though our bike ride yesterday required one major hill to get us up into the Presidio), as are several city blocks that seem largely to be devoted to high rise buildings.

Cycling the flat lands near the Bay. (No we didn’t go across the bridge.)

After that the city itself begins to rise. And rise and rise. There are several rings of rising. Chinatown is on one side of the city a ring or two off the bottom level. Several neighborhood names hint at their altitude: Telegraph Hill, Russian Hill. Our apartment is in Nob Hill. We are very near the top of the city.

Driving up here from the airport on Wednesday night/Thursday morning, I noted the climb. You go up a hill, it flattens out a major intersection, then it climbs again. This, of course, is what made San Francisco prime setting for 70s movies that involved car chases; or perhaps there was a rule that if you set a movie in San Francisco, there had to be a car chase written into the script. Because who can deny the extreme please of watching an Impala catch air at the top of a hill and bottom out mightily at the next intersection. And then, repeat the process because like I said this city is ring after ring of upward mobility.

I mean that upward mobility part. In the taxi to our apartment I noticeed of the climb, but it really caught my attention at the very last section of hill, where the grade increased significantly. It was hard to believe it was even a road anymore and not an elevator shaft. For this final block, the cars were parked nose-in. It would have been too much for the emergency brake to withstand, parking parallel to the street on this block. I didn’t notice it during that first drive, but Jen says that there isn’t just a sidewalk on that part of Taylor Street. It’s a stairway.

That kind of barrier definitely keeps the riff-raff out. At least it prevents the riff-raff with lung problems from making it up here, and those are among the worst kind of riff-raff. To be clear, there are lots of coughing masses down by Fisherman’s Wharf, but up here near the top the living is good. Take a right out of our door and walk uphill half a block.. This will take you to Jones Street. There doesn’t seem to be anything higher than that. And it is perfectly clear of riff-raff.

We sit up here in our apartment like Roman emperors looking down from our sanctuary among the seven hills. I’m not even the first one to make this connection. Lanie noted today that the terrain reminded her of the Palatine Hills (yes, the utterance of one freakishly well-travelled seen year old).

Happily walking downhill

And while being loftily imperial is a positive for us overall, I can’t say that I mind the riff-raff as much as some people. This is a city of very interesting people. Where San Franciscan altitude really makes an impact is in the area of logistics. Each morning so far we have happily trotted outwards and downwards toward the touristy parts. It’s a breeze covering the mile or two down to the Ferry Terminal or Alcatraz embarkation port. On day one as we were descending through Chinatown, I was thinking that it wasn’t going to be fun herding the kids back up to Pleasant Street later in the day.

Enter the cable car, often thought to be an outdated form of transportation kept around for nostalgia’s sake. Truth is, cable cars climb like Zoe’s friend Shannon, which is to say they climb incredibly well. Without cable cars, San Franciscans would be skinnier than they already are, except their thighs would be bulging. Other tourists may ride them from one end of the line to the other. We – are we really tourists if we’re this clever? – hop off at the highest elevation possible, and I can survive without having to coat my quadriceps with IcyHot to address my sore muscles. Cable cars are very useful things here, and it’s all because of the hills. They are a luxury even the Roman Emperors lacked.

Happily riding the cable car uphill.

Today’s cable car actually got stuck on the last steep grade up the far side of Taylor Street (which is not steep enough to require a sidewalk staircase, but it’s pretty steep). Even trusty cable cars have trouble climbing sometimes. It may have been that the car was overloaded with people, but probably it was because of the enormous amount of sourdough bread we were carrying (the reason for this is a somewhat long story). Everyone was asked to get off and walk up to the next corner. We were close to the top, so we just walked the extra block up to Jones Street, pleased with our quick mastery of San Francisco public transportation. From Jones Street, everything is downhill, including our apartment. We’ll rest up tonight – and likely eat some bread – then head off tomorrow downhill towards another day of adventure.

Make way for the emperors.

John Cleese and Getting Lost

Leave a reply

I’ve been in San Francisco this week, at a conference for work. I love this city. (Even apart from the fact that as I was arriving amidst the sunshine and palm trees, the news was showing a cheerful-looking reporter (probably drunk) standing in the snow in Bangor, ME, talking about 12 more inches in the forecast.)

Here’s the coolest thing about the conference: recognize this guy?? Yes, he’s gotten a lot older, but is still hilarious.

John Cleese! John Cleese!

Much of his lecture was about the value of making mistakes, which came in handy when I got lost on my morning run the following day. I looked at my map before I left, and thought I would run along the water for a while then take a left and cut back to my hotel. Unfortunately, the map failed to show a several-story-high cliff in the middle of this route, and sadly I had forgotten to pack my grappling hook. I tried to get around the hill, past the hill, and eventually even resigned myself to going over the hill. I found one of those cool San Francisco staircases winding upward into hidden gardens, past beautiful homes looking out over the Bay. It was beautiful.

However, all that winding meant I totally lost my sense of direction, and the series of turns that I needed to make to get off the hill completed the process. I was desperate enough to start attempting to navigate by the sun, and found myself taking quite a tour of the city — Telegraph Hill, North Beach, Chinatown. (Know how many joggers are in Chinatown at 7 am? The same as the number of non-Chinese people — one. I did not exactly blend in.) Eventually I spied Macy’s in the distance and, better yet, managed to find my way down to it and the
n on to Union Square. I don’t know how many miles I ended up running, but my fitbit buzzed for my 10,000 steps before I got back.

Late Wednesday night, after the conference ended, the rest of the family arrived. We’re ensconced in a cozy flat in Nob Hill and looking forward to five more days in the city. I’m glad to be done with the conference, except for having to put away the corporate credit card.

How do we afford this trip?

4 Replies

Well, saving for travel comes at the expense of certain other areas of our lives.

1. My car

The ceiling is kinda falling down. George at the garage tacked it up for us.

Many readers are no doubt familiar with my good old Saturn, 20 years old and going strong. When I bought it as a 22-year-old college graduate starting my first job, I was not envisioning that I would still be driving it around 20 years later with three kids in tow. It has many interesting “features” but it JUST KEEPS RUNNING. And it seems like throwing money away to get rid of it — it’s not like anyone is going to pay us a lot of money for it. (Note: if in fact you WOULD like to pay us a lot of money for it, please ignore this paragraph and see below for unique and valuable features. Personal checks accepted.)

That duct tape has lasted for YEARS!

Of all the things that are broken, the best on is the gas door. It no longer pops open when you pull the little lever. Instead, you have to punch the car next to the door. Every time I fill up I get to feel like Fonzie.

So much going on here. First, you can see the antique crank window. Also, that the upholstery fabric has long since peeled away. Finally, the side mirror that is attached with Gorilla Glue (through no fault of the car).

Next best is the passenger seat. The lever that controls the back angle was stuck, so Bob attempted to “fix” it, resulting in it breaking off entirely. Therefore anyone in the passenger seat who doesn’t hold themselves strictly upright gets thrown backwards and finds themselves looking at the peeling upholstery on the ceiling. Our friends Wendy and Chris are teaching their son Sam to drive, and we’ve been trying to convince them that this car would be perfect. As passenger, you can stare serenely at the ceiling, blissfully unaware of what is going on outside. Very low stress!

Now that it’s 20 years old, my coworkers have been urging me to go for the antique plates.

2. Our technology

We’re practically hobos.

Here are our cell phones. That’s my cool flip phone on the left. Hello, 1997! Bob broke his flip phone, so I got him a fancy new $10 phone for his birthday last year. As you can see, he has now broken that one too. (This despite the fact that it survived lying in the middle of our road for approximately 12 hours one day. It fell out of Bob’s pocket one night when he was pushing the Saturn, whose battery had died, into the driveway — see #1.)

At the moment he can only call phone numbers that are entirely composed of 8’s, 9’s, and 0’s. (If you have a number like this, let us know — we’d love to chat!) Texts are right out. So we may need to fork out another $10 in the near future.

Our phone plans are $150 every two years. You don’t see kids’ cell phones here because they don’t have any.

It says “Digital channel strength is low”

Our one TV is this cool 19-incher, that I got for free as an award at work. Bonus is that it fits right inside our little cabinet. No, we don’t have cable. We used to have this cool service called Aereo that cost $8 a month. It had a giant antenna that would suck in all the channels that were broadcast over the airwaves in Boston, and then stream them to us. The Man took it down, though. So now we must rely on netflix.

Our other technology devices have all been free, thanks to workplace gifts. In addition to the TV shown above, we have acquired two iPods, an iPod touch, and a Kindle Fire this way. At the moment the iPod touch is non-functional. I put a passcode on it due to overuse by a certain child, and this same certain child appears to have made too many attempt to guess it, resulting in this situation:

We bequeath this iPod to our great-grandchildren.

We bequeath this iPod to our grandchildren. It should be good as new in approximately 44 years.

3. We don’t exactly overheat our house.

4. We’re not terribly concerned about the state of our furniture. This is the work of our late cat, Fang. We figure he will always live on in our memories as long as we still have a souvenir of him.

We find it’s best to be late adopters of new conveniences and technologies — because once you have one, something that you were previously perfectly happy without suddenly seems to become a necessity (I’m looking at you, Amazon Prime). Though when I do eventually get a new car, it’s totally going to have some of those newfangled “anti-lock brakes” I keep hearing about.

Anniversarymoon!!!

Leave a reply

Talk about adventure! This weekend was the most adventurous weekend of the year, our Anniversarymoon trip! One of us has no idea where we’re going and the other one it’s tough to say. Maybe yes, maybe no. We can’t say because don’t want to let the other one in on our thinking.(!)

This year, I can finally announce to the greater populace, our trip was to New Durham/Wolfeboro. Instead of dropping money on a B&B, with its superficially attractive heat and hot water, I clandestinely arranged for the construction of our outdoor shower (plumbing only, the enclosure will come in the spring) and also a nice rustic sign that the girls and I worked on. It is not exactly 100-percent legal so I won’t linger on that.

All quiet on deck

We stayed on Chalk Pond and even grilled our own dinner Friday night (after dropping our kids off with our wonderful friends on Bagdad Road – I won’t mention their names because we don’t want them to be flooded with similar requests).

Dark clouds over the bike path

The weather almost cooperated completely. It was not too cold and it only rained for 20 minutes. That those 20 minutes coincided exactly with the time we were most exposed on the Wolfeboro Recreational Bike Trail did not dampen our spirits nearly as much as it dampened the rest of us. Happily, two things worked in our favor: Jen was able to find an acceptable –pretty nice, even – dry pair of pants in the consignment store by the lake; and we were spared the hail stones that other people in Wolfeboro told us about as we were walking around downtown after the

Stylish, dry pants (second-hand)

storm. On the trail, we only got rain, thunder and lots of backspackle (the Sniglet version, thankfully, and not the Urban Dictionary’s).

Small glasses, multiple samples

Then there was a minimalist microbrewery experience and a nice warm pizza restaurant. We got a nice fire going back at the place and it wasn’t too bad.

Snowmobile Rt. 22 signpost

Sunday was dedicated to wandering the snow- mobile trails in the hills of the lower Lakes Region. We found Merrymeeting Lake and a bunch of interesting trails leading in intriguing directions. For those cold riders in our readership, we stick pretty much to NH Rt. 22, which looks to be in good shape for the winter; but the spur we took to Merrymeeting did require three yards of blatant trespassing (though Jen reasoned that the trespassing signs were most likely intended for snowmobilers). Plus, we have a topographical map, which is what the man we found peeing in the woods suggested we bring along for our journey. Maybe for Christmas one of us will get a compass.

Surprise, scofflawing, brewpubs, thrift – these are all major elements for a romantic Anniversarymoon weekend. And adventure. Adventure is fun.

On top of Chocorua

Leave a reply

Just so that people don’t think we’re saving all the excitement for our big trip south, we ventured the other direction on Columbus Day to tackle Mount Chocorua. The parents in this family stress physical fitness as a key to getting the most out of our escapades abroad, so the girls are often being asked to test their mettle. Once they saw Chocorua’s rocky top, they were giddy with glee at the thought of climbing all over it. Mettle was evident in abundance.

There was the matter of the four miles or so of rather vertical travel to make it to the rocks on the summit, and there were many tempting boulders along the Piper Trail that beckoned the girls to expend energy on the way up. The hike challenged us all, and people were astonished to see Lanie when she arrived at the top. There weren’t too many people Nadia’s age there, either. We were very proud of them.

At the wind-swept summit

The rock scrambling seemed to provide adequate payoff for those of us who weren’t concerned about being blown into the abyss. For the rest of us, the fall colors and deep blue sky that smiled down for most of the ascent were worth the trip. At the top we encountered dark clouds and gusty winds. These, along with the general altitude and the general and tendency for girls to run in three directions at once, made that part of the journey a little too adventurous for more mature tastes.

We worked our way down, thighs burning, and set a course for pizza on the way home. By the time we got to the van we had about nine miles under our belts, and, hopefully, some pictures that are worth sharing.

Who me, worry?

Leave a reply

Last week Jen went to a talk at the high school on anxiety. It was probably meant for parents who wanted to help their kids face school-related stresses and social pressures. Jen, I think, went so she could help me.

For the past few months whenever she has brought up the prospect of a long-term trip to some other part of the world, she got silence and a petrified stare in return. I may not be as intrepid as I like people to believe. The thought of a trip like the one she was proposing brought up images of risks and headaches, confusion and hassles.

Some people are like that. We are happy where we are and we make do with what we have. We get adventure through reading. We don’t readily embrace change.

To my credit, I think, I eventually explained my fears to Jen, and then I told her I definitely want to go on this trip. This is because of how all of our other adventures have turned out. Was I looking forward to driving across the country in our van, through the South, in summer? Not particularly. Did I relish the responsibility of guiding a rental car from Rome to Venice and 30 places in between? Not at all. The list of things she proposed and I panicked over goes on and on: buying a house, having kids, sugar-free month, vacations of all kinds. Basically, every interesting thing we’ve ever done since getting married has terrified me.

They’ve all turned out tremendously well. We shouldn’t let fear rule our lives, especially when someone like Jen is doing the planning.

Also, once I learned that we wouldn’t be driving the length of Mexico, I started to breathe a little better. It might be that we don’t have to drive at all. This is helpful. The man who rented us our car in Rome seemed to think we’d be pleased that the car had only 17 kilometers on the odometer. Anyone who has seen the Getaway Van knows how scratch- and dent-prone we are. It was a triumphant Bob who walked away from the still-pristine white Audi on the top floor of the Venice parking garage (there’s only the one in the whole city). I was still smiling hours later. Look at the picture at the top of the blog. It’s the rest of my family and a triumphant Bob.

Another thing helping me breathe more easily is that this isn’t our parent’s Central America. Costa Rica is a widely-accepted tourist’s paradise, and the countries around it seem to be trying to jump on the bandwagon. We have several guidebooks and they all present seventeen incredible sites on every two-page spread. Jen has some work in the planning department, sure. I can come along for the ride – and not have to drive.

And now I have some advice from the anxiety talk. Jen told me all about it. I am to treat my worries as if they are an external entity keeping me from enjoying the planning of the trip. I say, “Hey, worry, get away so I can think about walking around and taking the bus in Central America.”

And the worry says, “As long as there’s no driving.”

Do we have to buy the worry a plane ticket?

Who, what, where, when, & how

Leave a reply

Map courtesy of Creative Commons / CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

We’re starting to put together the broad outlines of the trip. At a minimum, we’ve committed to dates as well as start and end points — plane tickets have been purchased! Plans are as follows:

February 9: My leave of absence from work begins
February 11: We fly from Boston to Managua, Nicaragua
April 29: We fly from Belize City, Belize to Boston
May 4: Back to work and school!

Our starting point was set when I read about La Mariposa Spanish School, set in the hills above Managua. We knew we wanted to start our trip with some Spanish immersion, and this place sounds incredible. We’ll have one-on-one Spanish instruction in the mornings, three homemade meals a day, afternoon excursions, and evening activities — all while staying in rustic accommodations in a nature reserve in the rainforest. There is great emphasis on sustainability and supporting the local community, so the food (including coffee!) is grown on site or locally sourced, everything is recycled, workers are paid a living wage, and profits go back into the community. (Also, for Nadia: they have horses. I’m sure she’ll pick up some Spanish from the stable workers.) One weekends there are more extended hikes and excursions. And all this for under $2000 a week for the five of us.

I got this card in the mail from my friend Sony the very day my leave of absence was approved. Maybe I should ask Sony for some lottery numbers.

After these initial two weeks, nothing is set in stone (except that we have to make our way to Belize at some point). We’re planning on spending some additional time exploring Nicaragua, then heading south into Costa Rica. I think for the most part we won’t have set plans, but will decide as we go. (For those who know me well, I know this sounds hard to believe. But even my planning skills have been defeated by the amazing wealth of things to do in this area.)

If time permits, we’ll continue south into Panama. We’d love to take a boat ride on the Panama Canal, among other things.

Lastly, when we get to the point where we have about two weeks left on our trip, we’ll fly to Belize. (Overland travel isn’t appealing because of the distances and unsafe areas involved.) We didn’t originally plan on Belize, because it doesn’t border the other places we’re going, but the more we’ve heard about it the better it sounds. It’s the home of the second-largest barrier reef in the world, so there’s amazing snorkeling. (Nadia’s greatest wish in the past was to go to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, until she found out that there are poisonous snakes there. (According to Lanie, there are also poisonous seashells.) If you should happen to be discussing Central America with Nadia, ix-nay on the akes-snay, if you get my meaning.) There are also world-famous caves and Mayan ruins. For the most part these things aren’t found in many other parts of Central America, so off to Belize we go.

Thanks to those who’ve already given us suggestions. Now that you know more precisely where we’re headed, we’d always love to hear more!

Zoe’s thoughts on the trip

Leave a reply

I’m really excited about our newest and biggest trip. What my Mom said about the zip lining, I’ve been saying we should do that for years.

For weeks, I’ve been finding Central American travel books on her dresser with titles like Exploring Panama! and Costa Rica! The Best Things to See and Do. In response to questioning, she said that she just thought that they would be fun to read. There were at least four different books.

Something was up. But with all my activities (I’m probably the biggest contributor to Mom’s “whirlwind of activities”; I do two sports, three bands, one choral group, and piano lessons plus homework and instrument practice), Mom’s sudden interest in reading lots of Central American books was at the back of my mind. Even when I was suspicious, I would never have imagined eleven weeks! About not wanting to go on trips, that’s never going to happen.

Nadia and I will be doing blog posts as part of our homeschooling. My previous blog posts have contained excessive use of the word awesome, but I hope to make better posts this trip. THE BROOKSES BETTER TAKE GOOD CARE OF LACEY (my chicken)!

Another beginning

Leave a reply

Welcome to our new and improved blog. We’re currently planning for our next adventure: a couple of months in Central America!

Why Central America? It’s hard to say. It just seemed to fit. We want the kids to spend time in a place that is utterly unlike where they’ve grown up. We want to avoid spending a small fortune. We want to escape late winter in New England, when the fire in the wood stove has lost its charm and the gray remains of the snow refuses to melt and every time a kid steps inside she tracks mud all over the house. We want the kids to have a chance to pick up some foreign language skills. We want to see volcanoes and monkeys and cloud forests and go ziplining through the forest canopy. (Possibly not all of us want that last part. Remember how Bob feels about heights.)

I’ve been reading a lot of travel blogs lately. Some provide poetic musings on the wonders of the world, some provide nitty-gritty logistical details, some provide lots of self-promotion and not much else. But collectively, they have provided me with something much more valuable — a sense of possibility. Lots of people out there have done and are doing things that are much crazier than what we’re planning! When you read about someone sailing across the ocean with toddlers, or trekking the Himalaya with their triplets strapped to their back, the idea of spending a few months in Central America is barely a blip on the radar. (This is probably scant comfort to my mother, who not for nothing has at times been called the Mother of Doom.)

Why now? Well, the older the kids get, we figure the harder it will be to extract them from school and activities and friends. We have some degree of confidence that we can manage to teach 7th grade math and science, but once we get into the realm of high school all bets would be off. (Yes, this is in spite of my degree in physics, which has essentially become a repressed memory.) They WANT to go now, and we don’t know how much longer we can bank on that either.

And beyond all that, I think we need a break. I need a break from the job that I’ve been going to for most of the last twenty years — a job that I mostly like, but that has begun to wear a bit lately. I think Bob could use a break from the responsibilities of the house and trying to decide what’s for dinner and figuring out how to get all three kids to different locations at the same time. And, although they might not realize it, I think the kids will benefit from a break too — a break from our whirlwind days of school and sports and clubs and homework and band practice. It’s all good stuff, but we’re finding it increasingly difficult to maintain a balance between all the wonderful opportunities that surround us, and taking time to just be. I’m hoping some time away from it all will give us some perspective on what truly adds value to our lives, and what is just a distraction.

For the next few months, we’ll be writing about our preparations for our trip and any other adventures that happen along. Stay tuned to weigh in on our itinerary, help us decide what to pack, and send along your sympathies when vaccination day comes along. (If you’ve been to Central America, we’d love to hear from you!) Thanks for coming along for the ride.