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.