True Crime, True Science, and Ripley’s Believe it or Not
		Today we woke up way TOO early.   We were booked on a 9:30 am yacht to Alcatraz where we teased one another mercilessly about being left there.  It turns out there was a special guest author names Darwin Coon who was there signing his book.  Darwin was a bank robber and with assaults on guard and escape attempts (not from Alcatraz) he was in some of the toughest prisons for over 14 years.  He lived in Alcatraz for 4 years and was on the very last boat that removed prisoners.  He was really fascinating to talk with.  You can see him in our picture below.  It was especially interesting to hear that the first kind of trouble he was involved in included his cutting class to go fishing.  Is this the road for all of our friends that skip out on school? In the second picture you can see Christina taking what she learned from Darwin and “escaping” with Miss Christina’s Dad. We learned a lot of really interesting things while at Alcatraz by going on a 45 minute walking tour with headsets.  After Alcatraz we ate lunch and then went to the Ripley’s Believe it or Not Museum.  There were a lot of really shocking things to see there.    Some of the most memorable things were the double sided mirrors where you could see people making funny faces and the people who stretch their necks (by squishing their spines) over a foot long.  The day just seemed to fly.  By the time we got to the Exploratorium there was only an hour left before it closed.  The Exploratorium is Miss Christina’s favorite place in San Francisco.  There was so much to look at there.  The place is set up so that you can walk around at your own pace and try out different science and art activities.  The museum doesn’t answer questions for you it just gets you to ask a lot.  At one station for example you are supposed to shake a white wand up and down rapidly.  When you do, you will see a kid dancing around.  It works that way because the after-images from your white stick creates a screen (like the ones in our classroom).  The kid dancing is then projected onto the make-shift screen. After the Exploratorium we puttered around San Francisco’s China Town and Fisherman’s Warf again before heading back to Sacramento.  We got back around 10:30 and stayed up to watch Pretty in Pink before heading to bed. Please go to www.misschristinapowers.com/itinerary for links to other days.