WHERE A BOUTZ...: Time Flies When You're Having Fun!!!

Where does the time go? The last few weeks I have been trying to just sit down and spend some time catching up on this blog, but the task of where to start has kept me from writing. Do I start out west where our journey began or do I just write about our most current adventures? Originally I thought to start with the present and work my way back, go with what is fresh on my mind. However, I was having trouble downloading pictures so I will go with what I have pictures of for now. So here we go, we will start in California, head west to Arizona, then over to New Mexico, up to Oklahoma, down to Texas, across to Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, then leave off in Florida. After that I will pick up with our visit in Alabama, quick trip to Georgia, Tennessee, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, I'll even throw in a visit to Hawaii, and finally leave you with Colorado. That will get us caught up just not sure how much I will get done in this post. Well here goes. I'm putting my typing fingers on, will try to remember the highlights and put some pictures in to go along with everything. Wish me luck!

California - The Golden State

A beautiful day for us to tour the city. Starting off with
our boat ride to Alcatraz Island. Saw the city and Golden Gate
Bridge from the water.

From shore this is a very unassuming island, once you are on it
the stories come to life.

We spent the day in San Francisco and I don't think we could have thrown anything more into this day. Both Graham and I have always wanted to go and see Alcatraz Island. When I was younger we would visit San Francisco's Pier 39, see the seals, eat clam chowder and stare off into the distance at Alcatraz. Most of the time it was freezing so we would look from a distance and then retreat to find somewhere warm.
Fortunately for the Boutz fam it was unseasonably warm. We left San Jose early in the morning and headed to the city to start our day over on Alcatraz. This in itself was wonderful as off in the distance we could see the Golden Gate Bridge, the Bay Bridge and the city. Beautiful!!! The island itself is beautiful, historic, and a bit creepy. Walking along the cell blocks you hear story after story of daily life in the cells. Some making the most by painting, writing, and then some plotting with others their escape from the island. Most were caught before they made it too far but a few escaped and were never heard from or seen again. One thing we had never known was that the guards who worked at Alcatraz also lived on the island and if they had a family guess what, they lived there too. The family side of the island was a bit more picturesque. Stories of kids playing baseball, foursquare, and even commuting to the city everyday for school. Wow, to live in a place like that. Think of the stories they could tell!!!

Next stop on our city tour is FOOD! We walked over to Pier 30 and had our fill of clam chowder and fresh fish and chips. This will not be the last time you see a picture of us eating on this particular trip, many more things to try!

A trip to SF would not be complete without riding the cable cars. With all the hills that we went up and then back down the kids had a hard time staying in one place. They were sliding from one side of their seats to the next. We took to cable car to Ghiradelli square and had ice cream sundaes, a highlight of the trip for sure. After getting fueled up we walked up to Lombard Street. I should say we walked, kids were pulled up by us! We did think about driving the motor home down the street just to say we did, but we ran out of time! :) Last stop on our tour was to Boudin Bakery to get some bread. While there we watched them make football loaves of bread with the words 49er's attached. All in all this was a great day in San Francisco!