The Bud-man of Alcatraz

Here I am in my cell with my bedroll.

The island was named "La Isla de los Alcatraces" by the Spanish. It means "The Island of the Pelicans.” Over the years, the shortened Spanish version "Alcatraz" became popular and is now what everyone calls it. I think it sounds better than “Pelican,” don’t you?

The island was bought for $5,000 in the name of the US government and President Fillmore ordered that Alcatraz Island become a military reservation called Camp Alcatraz. It was the first garrison on the island in and had 200 soldiers and 11 cannons. It was supposed to protect San Francisco from people coming from the ocean. Then the Civil War started the island had 85 cannons.  Pretty soon there were 105 cannons. It was also the San Francisco Arsenal storing firearms and keeping them from Confederate guys.

Because of Alcatraz sits out in the cold, strong, mean currents of the ocean, Civil War prisoners were sent there. A brick jailhouse was built so the prisoners weren’t in basements anymore. That’s when they made it into a long-term military prison. Then the Fed’s took it over for a regular prison. And for 29 years it held some of really bad guys like: Al Capone, the Birdman of Alcatraz, Machine Gun Kelly, and Alvin “Creepy” Karpis (he spend the most time there as a prisoner).

No prisoner escaped from Alcatraz but 36 prisoners tried. 2 guys tried twice, 23 were caught, 6 were shot and killed, 2 drowned and 5 are listed as missing/most likely drowned. (Did you see the movie with Clint Eastwood?) There was one escape attempt that they call the Battle of Alcatraz. 5 were killed. 12 were injured, and 2 surviving convicts were executed. That was in 1946.

The prison closed in 1963 because it cost too much to run. Indians took over the island in 1969 and stayed there for 2 years!

They declared Alcatraz a National Historic Landmark in 1986. You can go visit it and but it costs money to ride the ferry over. That’s how I got there.

Visit Alcatraz and tell me if you think you could escape!

By WPPilot - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27725542

This canyon is grand!

Here I am walking along the rim at Grand Canyon.

I'm a pretty lucky kid to be able to travel all over the world with my Mom and Dad, but I really like  the cool places I've seen right here in the USA.

One of my favorites is the Grand Canyon! It's in the state of Arizona and is
277 miles long! In some places it's 18 miles wide and is over a mile deep in spots. Cool, huh? How did it get there? Well, the Colorado River carved it. It took nearly two billion years to do that! Talk about a long time!

Many Native Americans built settlements in the Canyon and it's many caves. The Pueblo Indian tribes believe it to be a holy place.

Sunrise at a rest stop on our way to the Grand Canyon!

President Theodor Roosevelt visited the Grand Canyon in 1903, and established the Grand Canyon Game Preserve on November 28, 1906. Roosevelt added adjacent national forest lands and re-designated the preserve as a National Monument in January 1908. Grand Canyon National Park was finally established as the 17th U.S. National Park by an Act of Congress signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson on February 26, 1919. (I know all that cuz I wrote a report on it for school!)

A lot of people visit the Grand Canyon. It's one of the world's leading natural attractions, with about five million visitors per year. Overall, 83 percent are from the United States: California, Arizona, Texas, Florida, and New York represent the top domestic visitors. Seventeen percent of visitors were from outside the United States; the most prominently represented nations were the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, Germany, and The Netherlands. The South Rim is open all year round weather permitting. The North Rim is generally open mid-May to mid-October.

If you get the chance to go see it, go! You will be impressed! I was and I'm just a kid! If you need more information, just head over to the Grand Canyon National Park website. They have all kinds of info, photos, videos, and other links

"Tank" you, Santa Claus

Too bad they don't put lights on the tanks at Christmas!

I like when they have Christmas parties at my Dad's work. While the other kids jump around in the bounce house, I always go check out the equipment. This time it was a tank ! The last time I inspected a tank was at Fort Lewis, WA, but this one was at much warmer California location.

The ground is pretty far down there!

Did you know that the first tanks were made int the mid-19th Century? They are really an old idea. If you want to know more about tanks, check out this Wikipedia Link.

I inspected it from top to bottom, but getting down was a bit of a problem. I tried to jump down, but it was so far up that I scrapped up my hands. Big mistake ! Good thing my Mommy was there to put on camouflage (I had to ask my Mom how to spell that) Band-Aid on the cuts. I won't lie, I cried a little bit. But  Daddy says that it's okay to cry sometimes, even soldiers cry. That sure made me feel a lot better.

Happy Holidays from me and “tank” you for reading my blog.

I asked Santa for Lego blocks to build my own tank. I hope I he brings them. If not, I'll figure out something. In any case, I hope you have a Merry Christmas (if you celebrate Christmas) or whatever holiday you celebrate.

May your 2016 be the best year ever. I hope you don't ever need to have a camouflage Band-Aid (even though they are really cool ! Cars Band-Aids are cool too.)

Screaming for Ice Cream

There is nothing better than ice cream on a hot day! Here I have double scoop on a waffle cone at the Gibson Girl Ice Cream Parlor at Disneyland! Banana and chocolate! Yum.If you are weird like my mommy, you buy a cup of hot coffee to go with your ice cream. She says they go together well. I just think she’s crazy.

With so many self-serve frozen yogurt places out there, the old-fashioned ice cream parlor was almost a thing of the past! Come to find out, that frozen yogurt stuff wasn't even "healthier" than ice cream. Mommy says that if you're going to have it, you might as well have the real thing! I think I like the real thing better.

My Mommy and Daddy take me to the local old-fashioned ice cream parlor when I've been a really good boy. I try to be a really good boy a lot, wouldn't you?

Do you have a favorite ice cream store? If so, where is it? I'd like to try it!

One Small Step...

Look! I'm on the Moon! Well, not really. I'm at the Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson, Arizona. They opened up the special Moon Room just so I could get my picture taken with the Earth in the background.  If you like airplanes and space craft, you’ll like this place.

In the Space Gallery Exhibit, there’s a lot of fun stuff to crawl around in. I had great fun pretending I was an Apollo astronaut. You can see history of the experimental planes from the X-1 (broke the sound barrier) to the X-45 (a hypersonic test plane), The Space Race to the Moon and you can follow the water on Mars.

There are five exhibits: The Main Hanger, Hanger 3, Hanger 4, Space Gallery and then Outside has all kinds of planes sitting right there for you to walk up and touch.

Here I am in the Main Hanger reenacting Slim Picken's scene from Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. I forgot my cowboy hat though.

The B57 was designed as a tactical strike bomb and depth charge that could be dropped by aircraft moving at a high rate of speed. Production of the bomb began in 1963 and it remained in service until the early 1990s. The basic bomb weighs about 500 lbs and produced a blast in the 5-20 kiloton range depending on the warhead.

So basically, you'd want to be far, far away if it went off.

The people are very nice at the Pima Air & Space Museum. They let me perform an inspection of this jet turbine. Since I’m so small, I was able to get inside and let them know that everything was A-OK.

I even checked out the Stealth Bomber! Maybe when I grow up I can be one of their mechanics.

Outside, you never know what airplanes you might see. I had to have my picture taken with this retired plane! That’s right, Air Force One! Now I'm going to have to get my mom and dad to take me to the Reagan Library so I can go inside an Air Force One!

Do you think they would let a little guy like me be the pilot on Air Force One?

Old Tucson

It's been awhile since I posted on my blog, but that doesn’t mean I have been traveling around checking out places.

I love cowboys and indians, so my mom and dad took me to Old Tucson. It was the coolest place ever. My dad was even picked to do a shootout scene! It's a like a real Old West town. There is a saloon, where you can actually buy drinks (not the hard stuff), and a general store, a hotel, a sheriff's office and jail, a Chinese laundry and even a mine! You can ride the stagecoach and the train and even go to the local ranch (The High Chaparral, which mommy says used to be a TV show). I think I want to live here!

Have you 

ever been to 

an Old West town?

Sticks and stones

Check out these stones! They are big and look like big sticks. They could really break your bones if they fell on them. It's call Stonehenge.

I think they are really cool. I wanted them for my rock collection, but mommy said no. I guess maybe that was a good thing cuz they have a lot of bird poop on them.

Do you have a rock collection?