Carrizo Plain National Monument

Jill's Journal: There’s a mysterious, remote part of California that Kristi’s Adam took us to one day. The place – Carrizo Plain National Monument – never would have been a destination for us on our own and we’re so glad Adam encouraged us to go (and served as our tour guide). Featuring hundreds of miles of vast open space in an arid and almost treeless basin, Carrizo Plain spans well over 230,000 acres in the Southern San Joaquin Valley.

The Llano Estero, or salt marsh plain, has two main highlights. The first is Soda Lake, a prehistoric sea and one of the largest undisturbed alkali wetlands in the state. There’s no outlet, so water that pools during the rainy season in the winter eventually evaporates, leaving behind a 3,000-acre bed of white salt.

But even better is Painted Rock. The Bureau of Land Management allots passes for only 50 people each day (and only during certain times of the year) to visit the horseshoe-shaped sandstone, monolith rock. Rising 55 feet above the grasslands, Painted Rock was (and is) a sacred site for the Chumash and Yokut Indians. It’s considered one of the most important American Indian pictograph sites in the country. The Indian paintings were done over a long period of time, with some perhaps repainted over the years, but they are believed to range in age from 200 years old to an estimated 3,000 years old. They’re faded and being lost to the ravages of time and vandalism, but the girls so enjoyed spotting the pictographs and trying to figure out exactly what they meant. At the same rock, we also enjoyed catching nesting barn owls and seeing bedrock mortars used by the Native Americans to process seeds and nuts. Neat place.