August 28, 2011
August 28, 2011
Our last stop with the rental car is Point Reyes National Seashore. It is a peninsula of land on the shoreline north of San Francisco. On a map it looks like somebody tried to slice it away from the mainland. Turns out Mother Nature is the culprit. That cut line is the San Andreas Fault. During the famous 1906 San Francisco earthquake, Point Reyes slid twenty feet north. On a short hike from the Visitor Center we see evidence of that in a fence line that split during the quake.
In the Visitor Center we watch a ranger presentation not on a flat screen but a giant globe. Even though the ranger is mediocre, the show is pretty cool. The ranger is able to project dozens of different scenarios. He starts off with weather showing the movement of real hurricanes across the Gulf and Atlantic. He moves on to ocean currents and temperature gradients. Then on to earthquakes, dozens of which occur everyday on the earth (including DC). He finishes showing the thousands of airplanes in flight all over the world. I am into globes and now I have to figure out how to convince Aimee to let me buy one of these.
While pondering that problem we drive into the park and head for the lighthouse guarding the southwest point. When we get there, it is a pea soup fog of course. The lighthouse sits on a craggy spit of rock looking just like those scary movies we’ve all seen.
From the lighthouse point we drive inland and then south to Drakes Bay and another Visitor Center. This one gives a lot of the historical context of the park. It was first discovered by Sir Francis Drake, who stopped here to repair his ship.
He was raiding Spanish galleons that plied the Pacific, shipping gold from Acapulco to Manilla, and returning with Chinese spices and silk. He claimed the area and named it New England because the shoreline reminded him of the Dover Cliffs. Interestingly the local Indians were found using Chinese porcelain tableware (which they scavenged from a Spanish galleon that sunk offshore.)
After spending most of the day at Point Reyes, we drive home to leisurely read the Sunday newspaper. That had to be cancelled after we got stuck in a two-hour traffic jam when a NASCAR race let out. The Bay area with its water and mountains everywhere can cause horrific traffic pinchpoints.
Our last stop with the rental car is Point Reyes National Seashore. It is a peninsula of land on the shoreline north of San Francisco. On a map it looks like somebody tried to slice it away from the mainland. Turns out Mother Nature is the culprit. That cut line is the San Andreas Fault. During the famous 1906 San Francisco earthquake, Point Reyes slid twenty feet north. On a short hike from the Visitor Center we see evidence of that in a fence line that split during the quake.
In the Visitor Center we watch a ranger presentation not on a flat screen but a giant globe. Even though the ranger is mediocre, the show is pretty cool. The ranger is able to project dozens of different scenarios. He starts off with weather showing the movement of real hurricanes across the Gulf and Atlantic. He moves on to ocean currents and temperature gradients. Then on to earthquakes, dozens of which occur everyday on the earth (including DC). He finishes showing the thousands of airplanes in flight all over the world. I am into globes and now I have to figure out how to convince Aimee to let me buy one of these.
While pondering that problem we drive into the park and head for the lighthouse guarding the southwest point. When we get there, it is a pea soup fog of course. The lighthouse sits on a craggy spit of rock looking just like those scary movies we’ve all seen.
From the lighthouse point we drive inland and then south to Drakes Bay and another Visitor Center. This one gives a lot of the historical context of the park. It was first discovered by Sir Francis Drake, who stopped here to repair his ship.
He was raiding Spanish galleons that plied the Pacific, shipping gold from Acapulco to Manilla, and returning with Chinese spices and silk. He claimed the area and named it New England because the shoreline reminded him of the Dover Cliffs. Interestingly the local Indians were found using Chinese porcelain tableware (which they scavenged from a Spanish galleon that sunk offshore.)
After spending most of the day at Point Reyes, we drive home to leisurely read the Sunday newspaper. That had to be cancelled after we got stuck in a two-hour traffic jam when a NASCAR race let out. The Bay area with its water and mountains everywhere can cause horrific traffic pinchpoints.
posted by Mike and Aimee at 9:57 PM
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