Day 36 - Goodbye to Curry Village

Yesterday morning began much as the day before began - loud neighbors and a FLOOD of tourists racing around like F1 racers trying to find a parking spot.  To avoid the chaos of the morning, we chose to do something that Amy and I both remembered from years ago - the breakfast at Curry Village.  It really was a nice change from oatmeal and grits and included many options of eggs, bacon, the usual.  I, however, was excited to see that not only did they have biscuits and gravy, but it was cheaper than other options!  Needless to say, that plate looked clean when I was done with breakfast.

After breakfast, we packed up while the boys enjoyed their last hours of lounge time with the games.  Then we reconnected Rover and Dover (with some people VERY happy to see not one, but two parking spots open up).  From there, we joined the parade of cars that continued to be driven erratically as they too looked for a spot to park.  It was certainly time for us to get out of here.

Today was a long transfer as we recrossed the valley and went over to the west side to Pinnacles National Park.  We made more or less a non-stop drive with just one stop at Harbor Freight to buy an excessive amount of tools in preparation to repair the access door.  I had never done rivets before so I was a bit nervous, but after watching the YouTube video, I was overly confident I could figure it out.  Just to be sure though, I think I bought one of everything that had the word “Rivet” on it that Harbor Freight had in stock.

Pinnacles National Park is reported to be one of the least visited national parks.  This is likely due to it only having become a national park during the Obama administration as well as its reasonably remote location.  However, when we arrived (on a Saturday), we found it jam packed with people - especially at the pool.  However, the boys were not to be deterred and soon were splashing around in our first national park swimming pool.  They said that the water was cold but refreshing.

I spent the swimming time disassembling and then reassembling the access door.  While there wasn’t a repair shop that had the part we needed, our own camper had its own part, just on a different, less important door.  So, sacrifices were made and I immobilized the less important door and moved the lock over to the access door.  It turns out riveting isn’t all that difficult and the door was removed, adjusted, and reinstalled in less than two hours (and with <1% of what I had bought at harbor freight - only a slight exaggeration).

It was exciting to have the door functional again so we celebrated by watching some Simpsons episodes together as a family after an enjoyable camp dinner.  Then Amy and I explored campsites and while we didn’t see any California condors for which the park is known, we did see a LOT of their cousins, the turkey vultures resting in the trees as the sun fell.  

And while the camp was crowded, it was still NOTHING like Yosemite.  It felt like we were back to our type of park.  

Total Mileage - 5,962

# States/Provinces - 14