Road trip to Alcatraz in a Viper

[SUX2BU99]

This past weekend I headed out with a buddy in his 04 Viper and we hit the road to stay overnight in Alcatraz prison. We left Thursday morning and drove the I-5 south to Portland and then headed over to the 101 down the Oregon Coast. Stayed overnight in Florence and met up with 8 others that were part of our group. Friday morning we hit the sand dunes for an hour which was a total blast and then got on the 101 south to San Francisco. What a beautiful drive! And you might think there would be no room to pack 5 days worth of clothes for 2 people, including sleeping bags and pillows, and a laptop in the trunk of a Viper but we did! The drive from Orgeon to San Fran on the 101 is a trip in itself. Doing it in a Viper was that much cooler. The car is actually quite comfortable. We got about 450 kms (280 miles) to a tank, which holds about 16 or so gallons. Each fill up was not a bone-dry fill so we figured we got somewhere around 20-22 mpg. The big V10 would rumble along at 1500 rpm in 6th doing about 75 mph.

San Fran was very nice. Reminds me of Seattle. We stayed Friday night at the Hilton in Union Square. That was okay, but I don't think I'd stay there again or in that area. Pretty busy and kinda rough at night. Next morning we all took a trolley down to the start of the Wharf near the Port of San Fran and walked the Embarcardero to Pier 39 and had lunch. A few others and I drove back to the hotel to get 2 of the cars and our overnight stuff and headed back to the Alcatraz ferry terminal to await our boat. We had won one of their overnight lotteries. They do 18 of them a year and 200 groups apply. It costs $1500 for a group up to 30. We had 12 in ours.

Sat afternoon, night and Sunday morning was on the Rock. We had a park ranger hang with us and give us a behind the scenes too, going into a lot of areas the public is not allowed and you don't get to see on the regular audio tour which we did as well. We had a BBQ rib and steak dinner since one guy in our group was a chef. We got to go into the gun cages, on to the roof, see the chapel, go up into the hospital, down into the dungeons, saw A block, the Powerhouse, Laundry/Shops building and even a few of us went into the big guard tower at the dock. We slept in D block, which was solitary confinement and my buddy slept in a blackout cell, D-12 which is supposedly very haunted. He shut the door and the whole bit, sleeping in complete darkness. We ran around the island and the buildings until about 4am, going into a few closed areas like the kitchen and shower areas where the gift shop was too.

Sunday morning we headed back to the mainland, loaded up the Viper and headed back out. We stopped by San Quentin to snap a few pics and grab a souvenir and then hit the road again. We drove the I-5 home. Stopped in Roseburg I think it was for the night and made it home to Vancouver, BC by 7pm Monday night. It was an awesome experience, both the drive and staying overnight in Alcatraz. If you ever get the opportunity, I say do it!

[Lt.Del]

Wow, as much of a history buff as I am, I'd LOVE to do that, especially being in Law Enforcement, to see where the Bird Man of Alcatraz stayed, Al Capone, and Clint Eastwood--oh, wait, he was there for the movie only-my bad.

Sounds like a blast to get to all the behind the scenes and off-limit areas.  Pretty cool. I bet the roof top scene was awesome looking back at the Golden Gate Bridge.

[SUX2BU99]

Yeah it was really cool. My wife bought me Escape From Alcatraz with Clint in it yesterday. It's a great movie and even the park ranger said it was one of the best ones to see what life was like there. He was actually there when they filmed that movie. Said Clint was a nice guy. He was also there when Murder in the First was filmed. They even left the 46 Chevy stake-box truck behind and the ranger uses it now on the island. He and Christian Slater bombed around in it. When they filmed The Rock, he said Ed Harris was a cool guy but Nic Cage and Sean Connery were total princesses that the rangers weren't allowed to talk to or even look at. 

I was in the Birdman's cell. It's at the end of the top tier of D block. One of our guys stayed in it. During the 1946 riot, the marines picked his cell to shoot at with a 50 cal. machine gun from a boat. The bullet holes  went right through the concrete walls, the windows and up into his cell. It was hit about 30 times and you could see the dents and holes the bullets made when in the plumbing shaft behind the cell. He was also in the prison hospital for about 10 years and they have his old room with his picture in it.

The hospital was interesting. Had a psychiatric section with it's own small corridor and tiled cells, there was an operating room that still has it's equipment, old x-ray machine, a large cell fully decorated with hospital stuff. But it's off-limits to the public oddly enough. The night security guard, who remains on the island completely alone and has to patrol both outside and inside the buildings, said he hadn't seen anything paranormal in the 8 months he has been there, but the hospital is one of 2 areas he refuses to go into!

Al Capone was moved around frequently due to the constant threat of him being killed as a trophy kill by other inmates. We saw one cell he was believed to have stayed in. Eastwood was put into solitary in D-12, which my buddy stayed the night in.

[Lt.Del]

Those stories are awesome, most interesting.

You didn't get a chance to go down below the prison did ya?  The island was used as a fort around the early to mid 1800's.  There are thick brick dungeon type walls down below. 

AFter the prison days, Native Americans went there to protest certain issues and stayed there for quite a while.   

[Uno99]

Very Kewl Road trip indeed.  The only thing that would make it better is if you were driving a 73-87 with a viper v10 transplant

[SUX2BU99]

^ LOL no kidding.

Yep, as I said in the first post we went down into the dungeons. There were 2 ways to get there, one was a steel door in the floor of D block. I believe this was there before D block got renovated in 1940 and the 5 solitary cells were added. Before that, prisoners going to the 'hole' were taken down through this door in the floor and down into the dungeons. We went down into the dungeons through the stairwell in A block. One side of A block was rarely if ever used and still had the old swing-out, flat bar steel cell doors that could be cut through with a piece of string, soap and tooth powder. It was getting through these bars that IIRC led to the renovation of D block. Anyway, we went down there and saw the deterioration of the steel support beams holding up the oldest part of the cellhouse. The steel was literally eaten away in large portions and they had it shored up with jackpoles. Since it was unsafe and being worked on we could not go into the corridors down there but we could go into and see the old coal bunker areas that were later used as the 'hole'. He turned the light off so we could experience the 100% blackness of being down there. He said that a group of lawyers and doctors that did an overnight stay there wanted to be left down for an hour to meditate, of which they did. I got a few pics though of the pitch-black corridors just to see what was in there.

What's also interesting is when you walk down the stairs into the dungeon, you are actually walking into the old, dry, moat that had surrounded the original building, called the Citadel when it was used as a Fort in Civil War times. There were drawbridges installed in a few other areas at doorways that I have pics of showing where the ropes and pulleys were.

[SUX2BU99]

Pics are up! http://www.cardomain.com/ride/3127958 I don't have comments yet to each pic but I will. It's been a chore just getting them all posted. Feel free to ask about any various pics. The pics posted are about 1/4 of the total that I took.

[eventhorizon66]

I love your hearse!!!  Man, that thing deserves a hot-rodded 500 under the hood.  600 lb-ft ought to get it rolling along nicely.  I'd love to get my hands on a '59 Caddy hearse (the same year as the Ghostbuster-mobile).

[SUX2BU99]

Thanks   It's pretty neat to have a hearse. I bought the car but my brother keeps it as his house and he's doing it up. It has a neat story behind it too.  What I like best about it, is that it's a "side-loader" and the huge suicide doors and moving casket table.