Pinnacles National Park

November 18th

If you didn't know, there are approximately 28 National Parks (monuments, memorials, etc) in California.  Today we went to explore the youngest National Park, Pinnacles.

The Pinnacles are the remains of a volcanic field that moved 195 miles away from the San Andreas fault.  

We decided to do the Juniper Canyon trail.

There was a lot of going up over the course of at least dozen switchbacks.

We found a Western Fence lizard.  (There is an Eastern Fence lizard, sometimes known as the Northern Fence lizard, but there is no Southern Fence lizard.)

We got a small break from going up and switchbacks.

The park was created in 1908 by Roosevelt and made a National Park in 2013 by Obama.

It's very jagged.

The park covers about 26,000 acres. 

Around here we switched from the Juniper Canyon trail and started on the High Peaks trail.

Bright green moss!

Rocks!

In the 1880's the Pinnacles were known as the Palisades.

Dan has conquered this part of the park.

Here is where the High Peaks trail started to get interesting.

Steps carved into the rock.

A snake!  It's a Striped Racer aka California whipsnake.  

He was on our stairs so we waited for him to scoot.

We made it into the High Peaks!

We were there!

Green and orange lichen.

The path goes through/under this rock.

It was a little tight.

Oh good, steps going down.

The view on this side is nice too.  

I think our car is down near that white-ish spot in the middle-right.

I don't know what's happening with this tree and its bark.

Apparently this is a type of Manzanita shrub. 

Crazy lichen.

There are 293 species of lichen at Pinnacles.  Someone counted.

Ooooh, a bridge!

And a tunnel?  What?!

Right before the relatively flat trail back to our car, we found a tarantula.

I think the hike took us about 4 hours and covered almost 4.5 miles.  It might have been a little bit too strenuous for our first big hike in a long while.  We were both exhausted at the end.

This concludes our adventures for today.

BBQ with Bulgarians

November 6th

The Navy Postgraduate School (NPS) has a 10 week program for foreign military officers from other countries.  As part of the Foreign Area Officer (FAO) community, they encourage the FAO students to be sponsors/cultural advisors for these foreign students.  Since we think Dan might be going to Bulgaria for his next duty station, he's sponsoring two Bulgarian Army officers: Angel and Orlin.

They are wonderful people.  We mostly took them to the grocery store once a week, but periodically we got together for other things.  This time they asked to cook for us.

 Ta thinks she's getting food.  She is not.

 So much delicious food!  Orlin (left) and Angel (right) are really good cooks.

 Ta is still looking for food.

We had beer, wine, rakia, potato salad, coleslaw, regular salad, pickeled veggies, and of course kabobs.  It was a great BBQ and we had a lot of fun hanging out with our Bulgarian friends.

This concludes our adventures for today.

Grandpa Voll

October 18th

Shortly before leaving for Virginia, my mom called to inform us that my grandfather had passed away.   He had been failing for a little while, but I still wasn't ready for that phone call.   We didn't have all of our stuff yet, so we scrambled for appropriate clothes for the funeral and booked flights to Indiana.

William's Obituary:
"Nov. 11, 1925 - Sept. 29, 2016

SOUTH BEND - William Holland “Bill” Voll, Sr., died Thursday, September 29, 2016, in the company of his family at Holy Cross Village, Notre Dame, Indiana.
Bill was born in South Bend, Indiana, on November 11, 1925, to Bernard John and Helen Holland Voll who preceded him in death.
Following graduation in 1943 from Central Catholic High School, South Bend, Bill enrolled in the University of Notre Dame. When he joined the Naval Reserves, he was transferred to the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, for training. He proudly served his country during World War II as a U.S. Navy Lieutenant on the U.S.S. Pasadena.

Bill received an honorable discharge and returned to Notre Dame where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering. Later, he continued his education by completing the Small Business Management Program at Harvard Business School in Boston, Massachusetts.

In 1948, Bill married the former Virginia “Jinnie” McIntyre in Saginaw, Michigan. Together, their greatest achievement was parenting eleven children and mentoring the friends and spouses of their children as well as their grandchildren.

Bill was employed by Sibley Machine & Foundry Corporation, the family business, from 1948 to 1986. He held various positions over the years retiring as Chairman of the Board.

Upon his retirement, Bill and Jinnie travelled throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, Europe, Australia and New Zealand in a motor home. They visited more exotic and remote places by freighter ship. With great humor, they enjoyed many adventures and misadventures. Realizing his travel days were ending, Bill longed for a last hurrah! He asked his family to accompany him on a cruise to the Inside Passage of Alaska followed by a jaunt to Victoria, B.C. The trip took place this past August and was an extraordinary experience.

A member of numerous professional and civic organizations, Bill always strove to make the community a better place for everyone, particularly the marginalized. He was a frequent contributor to the South Bend Tribune Voice of the People commenting on local and societal issues he felt needed to be addressed.

Bill had a passion for knowledge and for inspiring others, particularly the younger generations, “to do good.” He challenged them to use their minds to identify problems and their energies and talents to make changes that would better the world. He was concerned about crime and violence in communities and believed solutions could be found in strengthening the family, encouraging education and praying for peace.

He was an ardent supporter of Notre Dame and of Notre Dame Football. He was also an enthusiastic fan of Chicago Cubs Baseball.

Bill was preceded in death by the love of his life, Jinnie Voll, after 65 years of marriage; and by his sisters, Mary Theresa Coquillard and Helen Georgina Voll.
Left to continue his legacy are Bill's eleven children: Nancy Pietrangeli, South Bend; Bill (Ann) Voll, Jr., Mishawaka, IN; John (Melva) Voll, Williston, ND; Susan (Mark) Galbraith, Winchester, VA; Gina (Joe) Prochaska, Northfield, IL; Mary (Ken) Fisher, Onekama, MI; Tisha (Tim) McBride, South Bend; Bernard (June Sheaks) Voll, Walkerton, IN; Michael Voll, South Bend; Sally (Gregg) Rowley, Venice, FL; Tom Voll, Elbe, WA; 27 grandchildren, 33 great grandchildren and numerous nieces and nephews.

The family thanks Senior1Care, Center for Hospice Care, the many wonderful caregivers and good friends for their assistance, prayers, well wishes and support for Bill and Jinnie over the years."

My grandfather was the epitome of a good man.  Truly good men are few and far between.  He is greatly missed.


Unrelated:

On our flight I saw this crazy thing.  My brother told me it's a Solar Farm.

October 20th

When we got back to Monterey, we got our Storage shipment.  These are all the things that had been hanging out in storage while we were in Italy.

These are our boxes of books.  It turns out we had 40 boxes in storage and approximately 38 of them were books.  We LITERALLY had a ton (2,000lbs) of books.

Virginia Weekend

October 8th

This weekend we flew to Virginia to have a late/early birthday party for Dan, me, and Gram.   Dan and I turned 30 in June and Gram will be 95 in November.  Because of various family conflicts, this was a good weekend to have a party.  It also gave us a way to get our dog back.  We had a big dinner event with a ton of cake.  Everyone had a great time.  

We went to explore Luray Caverns.  The photos aren't great because I used my phone and it was dark.

Luray caverns were discovered in 1878.

The family went exploring.

These formations are actually called speleothems.  They come in many shapes and sizes.

These are drapery speleothems.

This is Dream Lake.

It has a perfect reflection of the ceiling above.

Dan had to lift Tamzin up so she could see.

Tamzin is unsure about all of this.

I think this is looking down into the Giant's Hall. 

In the early days of exploring the caverns, the body of a Native American girl was found.  It is estimated that she is not older than 500 years and her grave probably got assumed by a sinkhole into the caverns.  

These are the raw ends where part of this formation sheared off. 

They have a pipe organ hooked up to the stalactites.   You can play the speleothems!  

(Well, you can't, but a professional approved by Luray Caverns can.)

We also went to my friend's family's farm to carve pumpkins.  I made a cat and Dan made a pirate.

To fly out we had to get a local vet do Tantalum's health certificate.  Luckily my mom's vet was able to squeeze us in.  Overall the United Petsafe program was....okay.  It was super stressful and I was really worried about Ta the entire flight.  We picked her up in SFO and she was shaky but fine.  I don't think she had ever been so excited to see us.

This concludes our adventures for now.

Monterey!

Most of September and a little of October

Having finally arrived in Monterey, we unloaded our stuff into our Air B&B and proceeded to try to find a more permanent place to live.  This didn't go very well.  We found the bike path down in Monterey and enjoyed some sea life though.

Seals balancing on rocks.

They'd probably be great at yoga.

A squirrel and some of the bike path/costal trail.

So many seals.  They look so soft.  I want to wobble them.

Our Air B&B was a little ways out of town, and one day I went wandering around the neighborhood.

There were some decent views up here.

And there was this weird/terrifying deer statue.

We searched for a place out in town and couldn't find anything that was what we wanted, within BAH (basic allowance for housing), and allowed pet over 20 lbs.  I was getting really discouraged.  We found one place in Pacific Grove that we really liked, but the landlord wasn't sure about us having pets.  We tried to offer a pet deposit and more rent, but he ultimately said no.  Dan suggested we look at base housing, and it was actually pretty decent.  Housing didn't care if we had pets and we could move in immediately.  So we did that.

We moved in on Sept. 16th with nothing but our suitcases and pets.  Our neighbors are from Mexico and were having an independence day party.  They fed us very well.  It was a lovely intro into the neighborhood.  A lot of sitting around with nothing happened.  At some point our Express shipment arrived; at least we had a few more things.

Dan had his first day of class for his master's degree on September 26th.
I made him take a first day of school photo.

We attended the Monterey Oktoberfest, which was a bit disappointing after having been to real Oktoberfest.   But it had some of the same silliness.

Also, here's an Oktoberfest band playing Wanna Be by the Spice Girls.

In early October our Household Goods shipment arrived and we were surrounded by boxes.

This concludes a series of small adventures.
  

Closing Thoughts on Italy/Europe

This has been an ongoing list of things that are terrible, funny, interesting, or great about Italy and sometimes Europe at large.  In no particular order:

1. I have seen more random penises out and about than I care to.  When driving, Italian men will pull off on the side of any road to pee.  They don't pee behind their cars though.  You can clearly see them.
2. Neapolitans hate to make change  They WILL NOT DO IT.  Even when you can see that they can easily make change for you, they won't.  They will just stare at you in silence until you either figure out how to pay the exact amount, or give up and go away.  Sometimes if you wait long enough, they will begrudgingly acquiesce.  This can be long and awkward and painful. 
3. Neapolitans are a liquid, at least when mobile.  They fill any space they are in and loath to be in a line or any sort of order.  
4. Italy was done by Monet.  From a distance it looks lovely.  Colorful picturesque coastal towns and hillside villages, and whatnot.  Up close it's a big mess of nonsense.
5. Bathrooms.  In Italy and most of Europe there aren't hooks in the bathrooms for women to hang their purses or bags.  Many of the toilets also don't have toilet seats.  This is more common in Italy than else where.
6. Gelato is sooooo good.  It's better than ice cream.  I will miss the accessibility of gelato.  My favorite flavor is fior di latte which is basically mozzarella flavor.  It's delicious, don't make that face.   Fior di latte is the name for mozzarella when it's from cow's milk instead of buffalo's milk. 
7. Wine flows freely here, sometimes almost literally.  Some enotecas have gas pump like systems for filling whatever container you want with wine.
8. When it rains in Naples, your car gets dirtier than if it hadn't rained.
9. Cemeteries are weird.  In Italy you are only buried for seven years, then they dig you up, condense your remains, and put you in a family vault.  This is because Italy is Catholic and they believe in the resurrection of the body.  If there's no "body" you can't be resurrected.  This also leads to weird apartment-looking buildings that are actually huge mausoleums.   They are apartments for the dead.
10. It is hard to get anything done.  No one calls the plumber when your sink is backed up.  They call their brother's friend's cousin who once installed a doorknob.  They then proceed to insist everything is fine, even though it clearly isn't.  Also, they will randomly show up to "fix" your problem.  They won't tell you when, and you probably won't be home.  This is now your fault and you will never see them again.
11. Fireworks.  Fireworks all the time.  For any and everything.  Tuesday at 1am?  FIREWORKS.  Wednesday at 10 am?  FIREWORKS.  Birthday, Wedding, found a Euro on the street?  FIREWORKS. It's a little funny and kind of wonderful.

Final Adventure Count

I thought a tally of our adventures might be fun, because....I like numbers and Dan likes data.

Time stationed in Naples, Italy: 23 Months, 2.5 weeks.
# of Countries Visited: 31

1. Austria - Vienna
2. Belgium - Bruges, Brussels
3. Bulgaria - Rila, Sofia
4. Czechia - Prague
5. Denmark - Copenhagen
6. England - Greenwich, London
7. Estonia - Tallin
8. Finland - Helsinki
9. France - Nice
10. Germany - Munich, Stuttgart (Dan only), Ulm, Warnemunde
11. Hungary - Budapest
12. Ireland - Carlow, Dublin, Dingle, Galway, Inis Mor
13. Italy - Assisi, Cinque Terra, Lecce, Matera, Naples, Orvieto, Rimini, Rome, Sicily, Spoleto, Tuscany, Venice, and a bunch of other small towns and places.
14. Monaco - Monaco
15. Morocco - Ait Ben Haddou Kasbah, Casablanca, Fez, Marrakech, Merzouga, Ourazazate, Todra Gorges
16. Netherlands - Amsterdam, Delft, Hague 
17. Norway - Bergen
18. Poland - Krakow
19. Portugal - Azores, Lisbon (Dan only)
20. Romania (Maura only) - Bran, Bucharest
21. Russia - St. Petersburg
22. San Marino - San Marino
23. Serbia - Belgrade, Sremski Karlovci
24. Slovakia - Bratislava
25. Spain - Barcelona, Estartit, Valencia
26. Sweden - Stockholm
27. Switzerland - Chillon, Geneva, Luasanne
28. Turkey - Marmaris
29. United States - California, Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Virginia
30. Vatican City (Maura only) - Vatican City
31. Wales - Cardiff

Trying to Leave Italy/Trying to get to California

A few days are covered in this post.
First and foremost, a HUGE thank you to Ryan and Heather and to my mother.

Sometime a little before Ireland
The flights that SATO booked for us to leave Italy went like this: military flight from Naples, Italy to Norfolk, Virginia with a layover in Rota, Spain.  Once in Norfolk we had to transfer from the military terminal to the public airport.  We were then to fly to Monterey via a layover in Dallas and a 26 hour layover in San Francisco.  I was freaking out about transporting our dog since airlines will not fly pets in cargo (she has to go cargo, she's too big) if the ground temperature is above 85 F.  The average temps for Norfolk and Dallas for the first week of September are 86 and 95 F respectively.  I was afraid that either A) the dog wouldn't be allowed on the flight out of Norfolk or B) the dog would make it to Dallas, but wouldn't be allowed to transfer and then be stuck in Dallas.  This lead to me asking my mother to meet us in Norfolk so that she could take us to the public airport and take our dog home with her to pet sit until we get settled in Monterey.  She agreed.  Dog freak out taken care of.

At some point we moved out of our house and into Ryan and Heather's house.  While living with them, we found out that the base vet, who needed to do the pets' certifications to fly, couldn't do them when we thought.  Instead, they could do them while we were in Ireland.  Thankfully, Heather agreed to take the pets to their vet appointment.  All I had to do was go to the vet with my ID and POA in Heather's name to verify that I was who I said I was and Heather was an acceptable sponsor for the pets.  I did this and then left Heather with all the documentation she could possibly need.  Oiy.  Side note: it turns out our cat, Tungsten, hates Heather.  We don't know why.


During Ireland
I contact Heather, from Ireland, the day of the appointment to ask how it went.  It did not go smoothly.  Tungsten wouldn't let Heather get near her.  Ryan had to come home from work and try to get the cat into her carrier.  She was having none of it.  They ultimately got Tungsten into the dog crate (by chasing her with a broom) and took her to base in the dog crate.  Once at the vet, they made the vet come out to the car to do Tungsten's health screening.  The vet didn't want to deal with the super pissed off cat inside a giant dog crate, so....he just signed the paperwork for the cat.  The dog, Tantalum, had no problems at all.


September 1st
Today we sold our second car in preparation for leaving Italy.  We took it to Capo to drop off our luggage for our military flight (we were allowed to drop it off the day before the flight) and to turn the car over to the new owner.  Ryan was going to give us a ride back to their house afterwards.  Dan dropped off me and the luggage and he went to transfer the car.  Upon checking in and checking the luggage, I am asked "Did they contact you about the delay?".....What delay? No, no one has contacted me about any delay...  (How would they?)  It turns out the military flight is stuck in Souda Bay and will go out later than expected on Friday or maybe Saturday.  I was reassured someone would contact us with updated details.  I have no faith that this will actually happen, and demand to get a contact number so I or Dan could call and see what the status of the flight is ourselves.  We inform my mother of the delay.


September 2nd
Dan calls to verify that the flight is still delayed.  He gets told, yes, it's delayed because it's broken down in Sigonella.  It'll go out Sunday.  Wait...wasn't is just broken in Souda Bay?  What?  Whatever.  We hang out at the house.  We inform my mother of the delay.


September 3rd
Dan calls to find out when the flight is going to leave.  He gets told it's not going out until Tuesday, because it's broken.  Okay.....now what?   Ryan and Heather had plans to go out on a boat on Sunday and were trying to figure out if we would be able to go with them or not.  Heather has a friend who was in charge of the terminal so she had been texting him to see if he knew what was going on with the flight.  He wasn't 100% sure but didn't think it would go out on Sunday.  Dan and I don't have bathing suits anymore, so we ran to the NEX to find clearance swimwear/things that could work as swimwear.  We inform my mother of the delay.


September 4th
Dan calls to find out when the flight is going to leave.  He gets told "definitely not until Tuesday."

While all of these delays were going on Dan kept calling to try to get our civilian flights reassigned.  He got told we'd have to deal with it when we got to Norfolk.  Great.

 Anyway, cool, we can go out on the boat.  So we do.

We're on a boat!

We anchored the two boats off of Procida to hang out for a good bit.  We got our anchors stuck and Dan pulled himself down the anchor line to try to get it unstuck.  I swear he had to be down 80 feet.  It was ridiculous.  He got one boat free and tried again for the second one but ultimately couldn't get it free.  A nice Italian man came over and tried maneuvering the boat around to get the anchor to release.  He finally did and we were very grateful.  We gave him some of our booze in appreciation.

We stopped for gelato at the Sant'Angelo marina.  While we were there Heather got in touch with her contact who told her that the flight was DEFINITELY going out tonight and that we needed to be there at 23:00.  We had plenty of time to get back to the house and get ready, but seriously.  If she hadn't of called, I think we would have missed our flight since we thought we weren't leaving until Tuesday.

We got home, got cleaned up, and we took a nap.  We say goodbye to Ryan and Heather.  We pile our stuff into Ryan's car and head to the military terminal.  We check Tantalum into cargo and board the flight.  It is hot and stuffy and super uncomfortable.  People were tired and hot and grumpy.  We take off and after a few hours arrive in Rota at like 03:00.

We are allowed to deplane.  Dan, who had been asleep, is very grumpy about everything and I leave him in the waiting area with Tungsten.  I go get Tantalum so I can walk her around for the duration of the layover.  We walk around and putz for about an hour.  I contact my mom to leave her a message to let her know that we made it to Rota and we should be taking off in another hour.  They make me give Tantalum back so she can be loaded back on the plane.  We're told that we're boarding in 30 minutes.  30 minutes turns into an hour and a half.  We get back on the plane.  I call my mom to tell her that we've boarded.  Dan falls asleep.  He wakes up 3 hours later and thinks we have to be almost halfway to Norfolk.  We had only taken off about 30 minutes ago.  We sat on the tarmac for 2 and half hours.

September 5th
Hello America!  We finally land in Norfolk and I call my mom to tell her we're Stateside.   We get our luggage and the dog and a cab and meet my mom at the NEX parking lot (she couldn't get on base to get to the military terminal).  My mom wasn't going to head straight back to Winchester from Norfolk anyway, so she had a hotel room booked (with capacity for all of us plus the pets just in case of nonsense like all of this).  She took us over to the Norfolk Airport first so that we could straighten out our follow on flights.  We are able to get a flight out the next day at the crack of dawn to San Francisco via JFK.  Mom took us to the hotel, we dumped our stuff, found food, and passed out.

September 6th
We get up super early and mom takes us to the airport.  She leaves with Tantalum.

 Bye Norfolk!

 A rainstorm over....something.

We land in San Francisco and find this:

 Cilindro Costruito (Cylinder Built) by Arnaldo Pomodoro.  Mr. Tomato has a sculpture here.  Remember all the Sphere in Spheres of his we've seen?

Welcome to California!

This concludes our adventures for leaving Italy and getting to California.