We arrived on Thursday afternoon and checked into our hotel, HTL587. The hotel is in an old building in the Tenderloin District. I didn't know too much about the area other than it is pretty central and there are quite a few homeless people in the area. All of that is true. Our sixth floor room was nice and we were comfortable there. We didn't do a lot of walking around the neighborhood except on Friday night when we went to dinner at a great restaurant about two minutes from the hotel called Brenda's.
I'm just gonna tell you that it was one of the best meals we have ever had. We started with the spicy garlic shrimp gratin. Amazing! Spicy, creamy, crunchy, sweet - it was the total package. MT called it "a special dish". It was all we could do to stop ourselves from licking the bowl after the bread was gone. My entree was the shrimp and grits. The grits were creamy and cheesy. There was a hint of saltiness from the bacon which offset the sweetness of the shrimp. The tomato gravy had a kick to it that paired well with the Abita IPA I had to accompany it. Don't even get me started on the biscuit the server suggested I get to accompany my entree. I think it has spoiled me for all other biscuits, which is a shame, because I like biscuits.
MT had one of the that night's specials: a spinach-stuffed pork chop with sweet onion gravy, mashed potatoes and veggies. His plate was clean when he was done. I thought he was going to pick up that pork chop bone and chew on it. I had a bite of the meat and it was savory and tender and all kinds of delicious.
Now that I've told you about the end of the trip, let's get back in order.
On Thursday night we got to go to the baseball game between the San Francisco Giants and the San Diego Padres. We sat down in the field level seats. They are divine.
Madison Bumgarner was pitching for the Giants. He's very good at his job. It was a pleasure to watch him work.
AT&T Park is spectacular.
On Friday morning we headed over to Pier 33 to catch a boat to Alcatraz. It was an absolutely gorgeous day. From the pier there is a great view of Coit Tower.
The view of the San Francisco skyline from the bay is incredible. We were so lucky to have such a clear, beautiful day.
We even had a great view of the Golden Gate Bridge from the boat.
It turned out that the tour we were on first went to Angel Island. I didn't know anything about the place, but there is quite a bit of history there. It was a military base during the Civil War and World War II and served as the Ellis Island of the Pacific, but it was also a detention center for Chinese immigrants. We took a tram tour around the island and learned about the history of the place and took in the breathtaking views of Tiburon, the Marin Headlands, the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz and the San Francisco skyline. The island is covered in trees, including eucalyptus. It smelled clean and fresh there.
We had lunch at the little restaurant at the cove. It was awesome to sit out in the sunshine, look at the water and have some surprisingly good food. We even got to watch sea lions frolicking!
From there we headed over to The Rock.
Alcatraz has quite the reputation, you know. It was a military prison, then a maximum security prison from the 1930's to the early 1960's. It was in operation for 29 years. After the prison closed, a group of Native Americans occupied it for 19 months. It is a fascinating and eerie place. To me, to see the ruins of the buildings juxtaposed with the beautiful gardens and flowers that had been planted there by the guards and their families that are still kept up by volunteers is kind of crazy. I wish I had taken some photos that captured the way I felt, but I didn't.
We went on the tour of the cellhouse. There was an audio tour that was narrated by a former guard. The directions were very clear. I didn't want to turn off the audio to spend too much time at a particular photo panel or cell because it was all kind of intimidating and a little creepy. The tour included information about a couple of escape attempts, one of which was quite murderous and the other attempt which might have succeeded, but no one knows.
It was seeing the regular cells and actually going into one of the solitary confinement cells that made me sad and scared. I bet the night tour is especially scary. It was freaky enough during the day.
Well, that's all I got. I am glad we went to Alcatraz, because I have always kind of wanted to check it out, but the unexpected treat was Angel Island. It was really beautiful there and I'm glad I had a chance to see it.
I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! I'm pretty sure I'll get back to my regular posting schedule next week, so talk to you on Tuesday!
No comments:
Post a Comment