NAPA

Ryan made his second visit to California at the end of June. For this visit, we decided to combine two of our favourite activities: drinking and traveling. This decided, we headed up to Napa Valley (in the town of Calistoga) for his second night here. We stayed at a cute B&B and managed to hit a total of 5 wineries in the two days we were there. A couple of the places were a little too snotty for my liking (like I know the difference between a wine aged in oak or .....hmmm....are they ever aged in anything else?). However, we found some places where the staff were friendly and the wines were tasty. In fact....we came home with 5 or 6 bottles of our favourite stuff.

August Briggs: one of the wineries we really enjoyed. It was small,
family-owned, and the staff were friendly

ALCATRAZ

After we checked out of our hotel and visited several more wineries (and emptied our bank accounts even further!) we headed back to the city for our first visit to Alcatraz. Every time we entered a new room, I kept trying to remember if I'd seen it in "The Rock". Sadly, aside from the kitchen, I couldn't recall too many other familiar scenes.....one crumbling wall looked like another crumbling wall after a while....

Waiting for the ferry to Alcatraz

Al Capone's cell

Some of the more "Infamous Inmates"

This cell belongs to one of the three men who are actually known to have made it out of the prison. Apparently, they carved fake heads of themselves to fool the guards and then managed to get out through ventilation holes they'd widened beneath their sinks...with spoons, or so the story goes. No one knows if they managed to survive their swim to shore, because they were never heard from again.

And, for those history buffs among you, if I got the story wrong, so be it. I loved the audio tape, but hell, it was vacation, not school. He he he

I thought this picture looked pretty cool. I shot it through a window that had a hole drilled into it. The glass was almost a foot thick...imagine trying to escape through that.