We were looking at the map to find "Pinnicles Youth Park", where All Trails said there was a nice "moderate level" trail with great views!  On the way there, we saw there was a local Buddist Monistary, so we had to visit The Buddha first!  Turns out they are still in the process of building their temple, but the large Buddha statue was there, along with a table saw at his feet!

As we drove in, we saw a huge number of vehicles parked there and obviously something was happening!  As we approached, a few people welcomed us in, even though we obviously didn't belong!  So, being welcomed and told it was ok for us to be there, we walked in to see the festivities.  Turns out they were Cambodian Buddists and were celebrating their New Year!  (We were obviously under-dressed!)

Everyone was amazingly friendly, repeatedly welcoming us, asking where we were from, offering us food (they had a huge buffet line), and a place to sit to join them!  We thanked them all, told them that Kelly is allergic to most foods, and that we were actually on our way to a hike but wanted to stop in and see Buddha and the temple first.  They finally let us go!

Having escaped the Buddists (ok, actually they were all very nice and it would have been interesting to spend more time with them, but we both had our priorities), we finally made our way to the Pinnacles Youth Park and found our trail for the afternoon.

Some parts of it were rather steep and definitely involved scrambling over rocks.  We lost the main trail a number of times because there were so many other side trails people had made!

The views were definitely spactacular and many photos were taken from the top of pinnacles.

It's a long way down!

Beware the hikers lurking behind rocks!

Lots of interesting flora & fauna:

We think this is "Hoary Puccoon"

We think this is "Rue-anemone" or "Windflower":

We think thsi is "Birdsfoot violet" or "Mountain Pansey":

Possibly "Wousewort", but possibly misidentified:

Butterfly is identified as "Celastrina Echo" or "Echo azure":

We finally made it back to the bottom and to the river bed:

Were we found "Blanchard's Cricket Frog":

This supposedly is the same type of frog.  He's blending in very well with his surroundings!

Thsi little guy was identified as a "Western Fence Lizard", but since that species is supposed to be farther west than Missouri, we're not sure:

This very cute little snake was wrapped around a broken tree along the trail.  The software identifies him as "Iberian worn lizard", but since that's found in the Mediterranian, we think the software is on crack!

A beautiful field full of purple flowers, found on the way back, when we took a detour to visit a stream under an unused bridge.

The bridge was on the old highway and was completely blocked off.  This tree was apparently carried downstream by quite a large current!

Here's the view from above.  Notice the shadow of the bridge in the lower right.  Below is a "rock bar" next to the stream, where Kelly spent a few hours looking at rocks.

So ends another day full of adventure.  We're tired!