Tom's National Park Adventure

Today is Memorial Day. I will spend most of it driving to my friend’s house in the San Francisco Bay Area. This is the first day since Thursday morning that I have had reliable cell service. So I have some catching up to do!

The first two people I met upon arriving were two very nice ladies, Susie from Southern California and Mary from Minnesota. I took Susie’s picture at the park sign for her. Unfortunately we are all in a club we would rather not be in. We have all lost our spouses. Susie and Mary were at the park for one night and then headed off to Yosemite National Park.

The main activity in Pinnicles is hiking. Lots and lots of trails.

The countryside all around the park is rolling hillsides. Many of them covered in grapevines as far as the eye can see. The Pinnacles are the remnants from volcanoes that were active millions of years ago. The park doesn’t look anything like the surrounding area. Native Americans had been living in this area long before the Spanish explorers found it. Unfortunately for the native Americans their immune systems weren’t equipped to handle the diseases that the Spanish carried with them.

Eventually the area was made available to homesteaders who scratched out a subsistence living.

The park was established as a National Monument in 1908 by President Theodore Roosevelt. The Civilian Conservation Corridor worked in the area making trails and erecting stone buildings in 1930’s. Pinnacle’s became a National Park in 2013.

I was able to see a couple of “firsts” while on this trip. My first “first” happened Thursday evening just past dusk. I looked up in the sky and was able to see a line of 10 to 15 satellites all strung together on their low orbit around the earth. It was a string of Elon Musk’s “Starlink” satellites. I have heard them described by friends who have seen them, but this was my first time!

The hiking will start on Friday morning.