Adventure 08, Hike 049 - Earthquake Walk

Capture California, the Game-2012

Adventure: 008, Hike 049 – Earthquake Walk

Team: Thing One, Thing Two

Date:  August 4, 2012

Location: Mission San Juan Bautista

Hike Info:

Trail: Earthquake Walk

Distance: .7 miles

Duration: 0:45

Elevation Rise: Negligible

Description:

Both Thing One and Thing Two saw this plaque saying Earthquake Walk. It looked like an interpretive trail and Thing One is always inquistive—still sometimes gives his kids a quarter for new knowledge. But as we were walking along, neither Thing One nor Thing Two knows exactly what constitutes this walk. There was nothing explicitly labeling the actual walk. But the idea is to show off the San Andreas Fault. You see, back in 1797, when the Spanish built Mission San Juan Bautista, they built it right smack daub on the fault line. Of course, if the Spanish knew that the nice hill side with the cooling breezes, overlooking a fertile flat lake bed would periodically be the center of shaking, they may have relocated. But they didn't, so they built the mission.

Back in 1979, the San Juan Bautista Chamber of Commerce decided to celebrate the 100^th anniversary of the founding of the US Geological Survey by placing a plaque at this site and dedicating a walk to them.

The walk we took was short, about ¾ of a mile. It started at the plaque, just outside of the mission, went down, close to the old lake bed. It turns out that this walk is is part of the original El Camino Real. It went along the mission wall until it got to the private property on the north-east side of the mission. We then walked the length of it until it intersected another street. At this point, we walked up the street and discovered, appropriately enough a restaurant called the Fault Line Restaurant. After this, we came back around past the blacksmith shop, back to the plaza and the mission.