California - Day Four

It has been a long, fun five days! Our last day of our trip, we spent the day in San Francisco. We started of the day with a nice little run to catch the boat to Alcatraz. We parked our vans at Pier 1 and had to be at Pier 33 within 13 minutes, or we would have lost our reservation on the boat. As we ran in our flip flops, we had multiple people yelling to us, "the race is over," as in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure that was happening downtown. The boat ride to the island definitely cooled us down! We arrived on the island where Alcatraz was located and split up into small groups to explore. Mostly everyone did the audio tour of the actual prison where we learned about spooky stories of the inmates. It was a great experience and interesting to see!

After we got back from the island, we split up again into groups to eat lunch and explore Pier 39 to do some shopping. Once we met back up, we went to the curviest road in the world, Lombard Road. All three vans survived the street, even Coach Kwan's fifteen passenger van. We next went to the Golden Gate Bridge. We walked under the bridge and then a short distance across it. Some of the girls faced their fears of heights and bridges and enjoyed the amazing view! Lastly, we made our way to Broderick Street to see the house from "Full House"! Our trip here was completed after a lady living there gave some girls a dirty look for taking pictures!

We were all very satisfied with our trip to California, our new tans and rosy cheeks! This was an experience that we will never forget! We will cherish these memories for the rest of our lives! We could not have had this experience without the help of our parents and coaches. We would like to give a special thanks to our athletic trainers Kathleen and Erin, our student manager Jess Kossler, travel agent (AAA), all of the people who helped us fundraise, UC Santa Cruz for hosting the tournament, and Brian Boveington and Lauren Lewicki for driving our vans to and from the airport! We really appreciate all of your hard work and dedication to this trip!

We will miss you California but are looking forward to be back to continue with our conference play! Look for our next blog after we play Earlham at home at 7 on Wednesday!

Julie Brunsman - Senior
Heather Bradshaw - Senior
Kelsey Ferguson - Senior
Sara Porter - Senior
Marlea Rolander - Junior
Ashlyn Howell - Sophomore
Chelsea Ludeman - Freshman