March 14, 2005

Day 3:

When got up this morning I was a little tired from the game, but was totally stoked for the day to come! We ate breakfast at the same place where we've been eating the last couple of days. For some reason the girls never get tired of really, really good waffles with fresh fruit. Who would?! It was funny though, Meredith kept telling herself that she would get something different today, no waffles with strawberries and guess what she got instead? Yeah, waffles with strawberries... it must be an addiction, good times. We got back to the hotel and got ready to head out to Golden Gate Bridge.

Instead of walking across the GGB, we decided to drive across it and go visit some old WWII forts and a really old lighthouse. When we were driving to see the old WWII forts we came across some really great scenery overlooking the Pacific. The waves there were awesome too, and I think Meredith was very excited to see those big rollers.. Too bad she didn't have her board with her. Katri and Suski were taking Surfing 101 with Meredith, teaching them when a good wave was coming in and when to go or let it go by. There were some extreme cliffs too and our trainer, Josh, and I were joking about jumping off the cliffs. I took a good picture of Josh pretending to jump off. Should have pushed him off, just kidding!!

So after we hiked up the hills and took some very sweet pics, we headed back to the vans and drove over to this old lighthouse that was on its own little peak. The bridge connecting the lighthouse and the main shore was so weak that only two people at one time and a maximum of 500lbs were allowed on the bridge,. The view of San Francisco near the cliffs was fabulous and on the way there and back we saw a bunch of seals that were just hanging out on the rocks, working on their tans I'm sure. The only problem with visiting the lighthouse was climbing back up the hills when we were going back to the car. Some of the girls, myself included, had to walk backwards for a little bit because our quads were throbbing. Good times!

Got back to the hotel, grabbed some warm clothes and headed to an In-N-Out Burger joint! I love In-N-Out Burger, their shakes are awesome! We then walked down to Pier 41 and saw some sidewalk performers. These guys are crazy. For instance, one show was a guy who wore silver clothes, painted his face silver and wore silver shades and stood on a milk carton like a statue. When you'd least expect it, he would move around and make noises as if he was a robot. It was awesome! They have some crazy people down there, very entertaining. We also saw some horse drawn carriages and met Charlie, one of the horses that pulled the carriage. Rico and Brenda got to know Charlie and even had their picture taken with him, what a sweet horse.

Coach met us over at Pier 41 and handed out our tickets, we were going to see Alcatraz! All the girls were excited about visiting "The Rock." Once we landed we had a quick history review of Alcatraz and then when we were walking inside of the main building. We had an audio tour from a couple of the former prisoners and the guards who worked there. Rico and I stood in one of the solitary confinement rooms and she said she felt something move in there, pretty creepy! Overall the girls had a really good time there and although they froze their butts off later that night when we were at the `Escapes' tour, it was a great experience.

We got back to Pier 41 and visited some of the shops around there, but eventually headed back to the hotel. We ran the entire way, it was great because it kept us all warm and we got back a lot quicker. Once again, I totally crashed when I got back to the hotel, as did everyone else.