We left Mom and Dad, carrying seven bottles of wine furnished by Dad, and headed back up through the Coast Range to San Francisco. I decided on a detour onto California Highway 25, the "Airline Highway." No explanation found for the nickname. It travels northwest from a point east of San Lucas to Hollister and on to Gilroy. The attraction is that it follows the San Andreas Fault. That was a bit of a disappointment. We were hoping for a deep crevasse where we could dare each other to jump in, as in "if you really love me you'll . . . ." No crevasse. In this area the fault is a creeping fault, which means it moves continuously at a rate of about three-tenths of an inch per year. The sides of the fault don't come into complete contact and don't build up stress, and thus there are no earthquakes in this area. So there are just gently rolling hills with a small valley in between. The only traffic was ranchers checking their cattle and motorcyclists out for a ride.
The other attraction of Highway 25 is Pinnacles National Monument. It was one of three national monuments designated by President Theodore Roosevelt in January 1908, along with Grand Canyon and Muir Woods. If you look at a map it looks like you can drive east on state road 146 from US highway 101 through the monument to highway 25. No go. The road stops about two miles from the entrance on the west side and about four miles from the entrance on the east side. The other problem is you can't see the rhyolite pinnacles from the road or parking lots. You have to hike at least a couple of miles, which wasn't on our itinerary. Pinnacles consist of a volcanic field that erupted about 23 million years ago. It is located west of the San Andreas Fault, so it has been moving northwest on the Pacific Plate. The fault itself passed through the volcanic field, and the other part of it is about 200 miles southwest near Lancaster, California, on the western end of the Mojave Desert. That little factoid was used as part of the evidence to establish the theory of plate tectonics.
We also had dinner with Hub and Jacob at the Chenery Park Restaurant in the San Francisco neighborhood of Glen Park, near Daly City. Good food and delightful conversation. Julie flies home on Monday and I continue on to Northern California and Oregon for a couple of weeks of trekking.
Mileage: 285. Cumulative mileage: 695.
