A trip to Pinnacles

A few weeks ago I went to Pinnacles National Monument with Larry and Peter. It was fun; we hiked and car camped.


The idea for this trip started when Larry got back from Vietnam. On a Wednesday we went to the OC Fair with Peter. Larry said he wanted to go on a nature trip before he left for Arizona in a couple of weeks. After thinking of a few places, I mentioned some people I knew had been to Pinnacles National Monument which is near Salinas.

On Thursday of next week our trip started. We left around 9 at night. As always, I did the driving. It was around 3 in the morning when we pulled up to our campsite. Luckily we were the only ones in that area so we did not disturb anyone. It was good Peter and I had practiced pitching our big 4 person tent a few days earlier. Aside from being dark, it was 47 degrees out.

Around 7 in the morning we awoke. Larry cooked bacon and eggs on a stove, but the bacon did not work out well. It had a lot of fat but did not produce all the grease we wanted for cooking the eggs.

We started on the trail at 9. Both Larry and I were concerned about being out of shape. Larry did very little physical activity in Vietnam, while I was long out of my habit of bike riding or even walking. Looking the the maps, Larry had planned a dozen mile loop around the park. It would take us through both caves in the park and most of the noteworthy trails.

We started at the Bear Gulch day use area, which was a short drive from our campsite. We went 1.2 miles through the Moses Spring trail to end of the Bear Gulch Cave trail. The cave was not very exciting. It might have been better if it was not partially closed for bats.

We went for 1.9 miles on the Rim trail and High Peaks trail until we reached the start of the Juniper Canyon trail. We had to go uphill but from the top we could see the clouds settling over a valley in the distance.


After the entire 1.8 miles of the Juniper Canyon trail we reached the west entrance of the park, the Chaparral Parking Area. It was 90 degrees that day and we had hiked 4.9 miles, so we used the opportunity to fill up our water. Throughout the monument I saw a few California Condors flying around.

From there we followed the Balconies trail to the Balconies Cave trail. Peter was always leading the way.


After our trip to the Lava River Cave in Arizona, we were looking forward to the caves. We brought extra clothing, extra light sources, and even purchased headlamps. However, the caves were a big disappointment. They were more like very short narrow canyons where some big rocks had fallen in and blocked out some light from above. The picture below was taken in the best part of the caves. If it would have been like this a lot longer it would have been a real cave. I should have looked up what a talus cave was when I saw it on the website.


After eating in the cave, we took the Old Pinnacles trail for 2.3 miles. This was nice because it was flat. Then we had a choice; we could take the Bear Gulch Trail back for a flat 1.6 miles back to my car, or take the High Peaks trail to the Condor Gulch trail for 3.7 miles. Which one do you think we chose?


The High Peaks trail also went up 1,300 feet. I almost died going up this hill. I was huffing and puffing like the Big Bad Wolf. Peter and Larry were doing OK, but I had to stop and rest a lot. At one point I laid down on the trail. However, I was worried the vultures I had seen earlier would start circling around me. I kept telling myself "If I can handle the Grand Canyon, I can handle this." When we got to the top we had this view.


We took the Condor Gulch trail down and back to my car. The hiking totaled 11.7 miles with a lot of ups and downs.

When we got back to our campsite we sat in the shade and waited for the sun to go down. For dinner we cooked pasta with a lot of spam and Vienna sausage.


Since the fire warning was at its highest possible level, they did not allow campfires. Using the showers at the campsite took a lot of time. Only one of the showers was working and it worked on quarters, with a four minute waiting time between uses.



The Drive
From Peter's house we took the 22 to the 5. We exited the 5 at Coalinga, then took the 198 to the 25 to the 146. The 198 and 25 were a lot of fun to drive at night. These winding hilly roads had turns that had to be taken at 25 or 30 MPH. There were very few other cars. My biggest concern was all the wildlife. There were rabbits all over; I ran over two or three of them driving. The entire trip took 636.7 miles. As with my earlier experiences, driving to the national park or monument is a bunch of fun.

We got back around 5 on Saturday afternoon. We had something important scheduled to do on Sunday, we went to Disneyland. The interesting things we did included going on the new Star Tours, which was not as good as I had hopped (I yelled at Jar Jar Binks). We also did the Toy Story Mania! shooting ride in California Adventure. You sit in a car that is taken to different places where you shoot at targets on 3D screens. Also seen was the show The World of Color in California Adventure, which you should get a Fastpass for early in the day to get into a viewing area. Imagine the Bellagio fountain show with lights and a lot of projected Disney characters and you get the idea. A couple hundred pictures of the day were posted online.



Overall the Pinnacles trip was good, but the place itself was not as good as our other National Park adventures.

Midway through a crazy class

This is the start of the fourth week of my five week class at UC Irvine. It has been a crazy few weeks.

The only thing I can compare this to is the quantum mechanics class I took the summer before my junior year. During the summer both classes are taught at twice the speed of a normal fall or spring term class.

The good difference is this class makes a lot more sense. I am understanding what is going on and it is all very reasonable to me. Most importantly, I am liking it. Also the professor keeps things interesting and generates much mirth. I laugh out loud and smile a few times every lecture.

However, I do not know anyone in the class. Unlike quantum mechanics, my friend Yinbo is not here to save me from my ignorance on problem sets and hang out with me during breaks.

For better or worse, (better for them, worse for me) everyone else in the class is an undergraduate majoring in electrical engineering entering his or her senior (or super senior) year. Except for the online extension classes I have taken (where the instructors were of varying quality), I have never taken an electrical engineering class before, let alone a fast paced upper division one. To be fair, if it were not for the MATLAB skills I learned in extension I would be hopelessly frustrated trying to complete the computer exercises and the first lab. The professor is helpful when I ask him basic electrical questions everyone else already knows. He gave me a lecture about the wonders of an inverting operational amplifier in office hours.

This class is taking a lot of time. On Monday and Wednesday I have lecture from 8-10:50 and discussion from 11-11:50. On Tuesday and Thursday I have lab from 8-10:50. Since each week covers the material normally covered in two weeks, the problem sets are extra long. Last week from 6 AM Tuesday to noon on Thursday I got less than four hours of sleep. There was a problem set due, a lab report, MATLAB, and reading for the next lab somewhere between a lot of procrastinating.

As a tangential benefit I am learning my way around UCI. Considering the large number of people I know who went there, it is good to have an idea where things are on campus and the best places to eat. In high school I ate at the In-N-Out and Del Taco across the street often, but I rarely ventured onto campus.

Driving there
The way I drive to UCI starts out the same way I drove to other educational institutions. I start out driving down Warner, which is the way I drove to high school. Then when I get on the 405 south it is like I am driving to a summer class at OCC. Then I get on the 73, which is a toll road. Luckily, the first few exits are toll free. I get off at Bison Ave. right before the toll part starts. One turn off the off-ramp and moments later I am on campus where the road takes me straight to the best parking lot. The drive home is the reverse of this. Today it took me twenty minutes to drive the 12.5 miles from UCI to home.

Today was the midterm and Wednesday of next week is the final. Somewhere in between is two (maybe three) labs and two extra big problem sets.

It was a great weekend

For the past couple of months I have been helping to plan a retreat at church for this past weekend. It is a continuation of a previous retreat I helped at in May.

My job for the weekend was Spiritual Director. I had to pray for everyone. Since I am not a good outward prayer leader, I thought it would be a good experience for me. It was a big responsibility, and it also included being second in charge overall for the weekend. However, it was a team effort. Everyone on the team wrote a talk to give, picked out music, and planned out how things would happen. While I have given witness talks at retreats before, I worked on a new one for a new topic for this weekend.

People who have been on earlier weekends in this program have had very positive things to say about them. Many people have described the experience as life changing. The team was looking forward to continuing this trend.

All this preparation brings us to this past weekend. The retreat had to be canceled because only a couple of people signed up. It would have been a great weekend, but it never happened.

The program has been put on indefinite hold until we can get commitments from a set number of people. When that happens, the process will start up again and a new team will create a new retreat.

Brighter side
To leave you on a happier note, this past weekend had some good things for me. My friends (the Vietnamese Crew, or as Eric calls us "The Group") had a BBQ in the park. We all brought stuff and barbecued hamburgers, hot dogs, bacon, and carne asada. We then went to Eric's house and watched Aladdin.

Back in class

On Monday of last week I started taking a class at UCI. Unlike my earlier classes which were through extension, this is a real UCI class. Everyone else in the class is a full time UCI undergraduate majoring in electrical engineering. It is one of there summer session classes. It is five weeks long, so it fits a full ten week class into half the time. This includes six hours of lecture, two hours of discussion, and six hours of lab every week.

Since I am not a regular UCI student, there have been some problems getting everything set for the class. For example, I cannot log on to the UCI computer system from home. When I called the office up, I was told I should have received a number in the mail with my registration; I never received anything in the mail from them. Then I was told I would have to go to the office to get my ID number.

The next day I went to campus and visited the office, actually a window, and was able to get a copy of my registration with an ID number. I went over to the parking office and bought a parking pass. While I was there I saw one of the stupidest things I have seen in a long time. Someone illegally parked in the parking lot of the UCIPD and the Parking & Transportation Office. I saw the student arguing with a police officer as his car was being ticketed for being parked in a place that clearly was not a parking spot.

Class starts
The class is about control systems. So far it is going well. The instructor is a good lecturer and wants all of us to do well.

However, lab section contained another bureaucratic battle. The class requires the use of MATLAB, which is on the computers in the lab. On the first day of lab I was unable to log in to the computer system. To make a long story short, after talking to three different people (including the EECS chair), signing up for a UCI email address, visiting multiple buildings, and missing an hour of lab I was still unable to log in. I decided to wait until after the weekend in case the system needed time to update. When I was still unable to log in today, I made a phone call and talked to someone who finally enabled my access.

My first assignment is due on Wednesday and the first lab assignment will be revealed on Thursday.