Searching for the California Condor

Well, here we are in central California, the principal range of the California condor. There are two groups of them, one that soars over the Big Sur section of the coast, due west of our current locale, and the other patroling the Pinnacles Nat'l Monument, a few miles south of us. Yesterday we drove down for a glimpse of these huge birds, beautiful in flight, and nightmare ugly up close. But, alas, as you can tell by the choice of photo for the day, we struck out. They are supposed to be easier to spot on one of the 8-10 mile hikes - like that's ever gonna happen. We will try one of the two-milers next week. Maybe we'll get lucky - ya just never know...

The Pinnacles are unusual for one other reason. The primary mountainous formation (pinnacle) is the western half of a volcano which formed 15 million year ago on the San Andreas fault. The fact that this half of the peak (still on the fault line) is 190 miles north of the eastern half has been used to prove the rate of movement along the plate boundaries. There. Now you've had the Geo I lesson for the day, sorry about that. Our RV park is also in the fault zone - we felt a couple of jolts the other night - and yes it was a quake!