Before we left on vacation, we talked about going out to Alcatraz. I’ve visited the bay area frequently throughout my life, but have never done the touristy things, so hadn’t been out to the rock. Hubs wasn’t sure it was a good idea because Alcatraz has a reputation for being haunted and I happen to be super sensitive to vibrations in places. And if you think about the history of the place and the prisoners who made Alcatraz their home for a period of time, the vibrations wouldn’t likely be good ones. But we were extremely fortunate to be able to get tickets – it was sold out for several weeks, so I figured that was a good enough indication… we were going. We entered the intake room and walked toward the area where the arriving inmates would receive their blankets, clothes, and be showered before being led to the cell. Apparently I paled because hubs asked me whether I was going to be okay continuing on, but we did and I’m glad we did.

The audio tour is an excellent presentation and would highly recommend going through the cell block with the presentation. Toward the end of the tour, we were in the administration area, and were told to exit to the patio area outside of the administration area. There was a light house to our right and the ruins of the warden’s house to the left. Directly ahead was the bay, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the skyline of San Francisco. At the top of the steps leading the edge, I stopped to take a picture of the bay and skyline. Because of the glare, I couldn’t really see what was on my screen, so pretty much held the phone up, snapped, and then retreated to see whether the picture was decent. This meant I was watching what was happening in front of me instead of the screen. I saw a lady to the right and a group of people making their way to the rail.

I tried to look at the picture, but still couldn’t see the screen well (brightness was turned down), but I saw a weird white disc in the picture, so went to the shade, upped the brightness and found a girl carrying wheels of something, wearing heavy gloves, and carrying some shears of some kind. I showed hubs and his reaction was the same as mine. Where did the girl come from? She definitely was not someone I saw (I would have waited to snap the pic so as to not have her in my shot.) The other question I had was where was she going? The direction she was heading was toward the Warden’s house, which was nothing more than ruins. To come into the cell blocks, she would have passed us — and that didn’t happen. So hubs wanted me to take another picture (at the top of the post) to see what happened. I got the picture I had intended to from the beginning.

Why did I get this picture? *shrugs* Maybe to highlight the Indian Occupation of Alcatraz from 1969-1970. Maybe just to give us something to talk about. Maybe because the main character I’m working with right now happens to be half-Cherokee, and I’ve been researching Indian issues to help me with her background.

Speaking of my main character, I’d better get together with her and get some words down on the page.

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