Pinnacles with family

Pinnacles National Monument (March 20, 2010) – To fulfill the personal promise, I took Promila and Prem on Saturday afternoon to Pinnacles. It was a nice drive; however unlike last time, when we reached the gate in afternoon, there was a queue of cars. Officer came and told that parking lot is full and we have to wait till somebody comes out. Compare to last time, when we reached before 8 AM, this was way too busy.

Since there were more than one parking spot, I was wondering if I would get the one near Bear Gulch area which was most suitable to hike to caves. After about 10 minutes of wait, officer told us to go all the way to the Bear Gulch area.

Yipppeeee! Or so I thought.

Just 100 yards further from the gate, there was another officer, who I innocuously thought might be directing the traffic to different parking lots. Officer in the car pointed me to keep going forward by vigorously pointing the finger to go straight. I sped up, passed the officer’s car, thinking that they might want to clear the waiting cars behind me quickly. Soon, in rear view mirror police car was tailing me, flashing lights. I was still not sure if it was for me. I stopped. And checked in rear view mirror woman officer appeared to move towards me.

Officer : You were doing 30 in speed zone of 25 when you passed me. I pointed my fingers towards the ground to warn you to slow down, but you further sped up.

Me : (stammering) Ohhh! I thought you were asking me to go faster, by pointing your finger ahead.

Officer : (getting more upset by the seconds) Sir, do you honestly think that a law and enforcement officer would ask you to speed up when you are already above the speed limit.

I did not know that I had the same annoying effect on other women apart from Promila. More stammering, awkward explanations and then she ended my misery by asking for my license, registration and proof of insurance. She went back to her car to write me a ticket.

Promila was telling me that not to be upset, let’s enjoy rest of the day. And to my surprise, I was not upset. Looked like, somewhere during the journey, I had become mature enough to take such setbacks in my stride. It was one thing to know not ruin the rest of the day based on one bad event; and totally a different ball game to internalize it.

While I was pondering on that, officer came back, and told me that she was letting me go with a warning this time, however, would give me two tickets if she caught me again. I did not dare ask about which show/movie the tickets were about and whether I could have one extra for Prem.
Most of the details about the Pinnacles hike are in my earlier blog. We did the 2 mile loop twice.

http://maneeshagarwalfamily.blogspot.com/2010/03/hike-in-pinnacles-national-monument.html

As luck would have it, we saw one California Condor flying at less than 50 yards. It was huge and majestic and had a diamond shaped white patch under its wing. Prem and I did some climbing. Park was full of rock climbers. This time we were able to take some pictures inside the caves. This time pictures came even better as we had an expert photographer and much better looking people. For pictures, please click

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2053712&id=1524900175&l=3b6ce4370e