Mt. Lassen National Park to Great Basin National Park

Sorry for the radio silence, this has been the worst trip, or best I can't decide, for lack of wifi, cell service, internet, telegraph, telegram, television and general contact with civilization as we know it.

Anyway, where were we?  Oh, Mt. Lassen or as I came to call it, Mt. Less Than.  As in, less than Yellowstone and really less than any other national park I have been to.  It's not that it's not scenic, it is.  But, I have never been in a national park that I didn't round a corner and say "Wow, that's amazing", except this one.

Why is this place a national park anyway?  Well, in 1914 Mt Lassen volcano erupted and a dude, B.F. Loomis, and his wife who lived there got some shots of it.  They appeared in all the papers and since no one in the United States had ever seen an eruption, it was a really big deal.

But, here's the thing, since then it's been dormant.  And nothing in nature elicits the comment "Wow, that's amazing"quite like the word dormant.

ZZZZZZ

That's not really fair, it is a great area for hiking and there aren't a ton of visitors so it's a nice place to snap some photos and spend a couple days.  But, beyond that it just didn't ring any bells for me.  Now if it was constantly erupting like the volcanoes we have seen in South America, then it might be a different story.

Wouldn't this be better if molten lava was running down the sides?

There were a couple of pretty, deep blue, lakes 

And some stinky, bubbling, roadside mud pots

Nice warm mud baths

Some meandering mountain streams

Wow, that's amazing

I think this is our 38th or 39th National Park, I'm gonna check

But then as we were leaving, I ran into this guy and he made the whole trip here worthwhile.  That's an old Astro van that's been covered in plastic jar lids.

Don't ever change California

After leaving Mt. Lassen National Park, we spent one night in the biggest, little city in the world.

I lost, Fred won, nuf said

As we approached Reno, it got smokey.

Really smokey

Out of control wildfires in California made it pretty hard to breathe but it did make for some nice sunsets.

Great Basin National Park

Isn't it in the middle of nowhere?  Yes, it is.  Is it worth it?  Most definitely.  I mean what's not to like 3,000 year old trees, a brilliant night sky, caves, and some cattle rancher landowners next to the park with a quirky sense of humor.

But first, I made Fred pull over on the side of a mountain road because I had spied these:

Those are coulter pine cones and they are huge, like 2 lbs each huge.  They are also called widow maker pines for obvious reasons and they produce the largest pine cone of any pine tree species in the world.  They can weigh as much as 10 lbs and I love them so I risked widowhood by having Fred collect a bag full.

As we drove in to Great Basin National Park we were greeted by this ominous sign:

Uh-oh

Yep, we picked the one weekend that proved to be the most crowded of the whole year.  You know what that meant, no camping spots available in the park. Not one and your choices outside the park are really pretty limited.  We ended up getting the last spot at a privately owned RV/dive bar/tent camp/motel. 

At least the location was good, right outside the entrance road to the park so early the next morning we took one of the best hikes in the park.  The trail up to see the bristlecone pines.

You have to drive up to the trailhead which starts around 10,000 ft, but what a drive.  

The aspens were on fire

The trail itself is a little rocky

Ok, maybe more than a little

Then you start to see the pines:

These trees are between 2,000 and 3,000 years old

Even the dead ones do not decay for 300 to 400 years

 They are the oldest living things on the entire planet

Since we left for the hike early in the morning, we had the whole grove to ourselves for awhile.  Fred hiked further up the trail toward a glacier to get some better mountain shots and I sorted rocks and contemplated the age of the universe while I waited for him to come back.  There was no shortage rocks and you are required by law in Utah to have deep thoughts here.

A bit further along the trail the mountain expresses its opinion of my deep thoughts

If you read Game of Thrones you will know this is really a weirwood tree

This is my favorite hike this trip, it's just beautiful and serene

I'll leave you alone for a moment while you contemplate these two ancient life forms

Look how teensy the cones are compared to the coulter pine

Meanwhile, back at the Bambi, I'm closing things up cuz it's about to rain and you know why that's a big bummer?  Because we had planned on doing some of the astronomy stuff that second night and the whole thing was cancelled.

The next morning we headed back to the park to tour some caves which turned out to be pretty great but you know what's not great about caves?  The ability to get decent pictures of drippy rock thingees .  They just never turn out that great, so I'll spare you.

The land that borders the park is owned by cattle ranchers who I think take all this newly created tourism with a grain of salt based on the art that tacked up to fence posts around the park.

Like so:

This one was my favorite, complete with horse head skull and hooves propped on the steering wheel, but these little art gems were all along the road to the park.  Someone has a twisted sense of humor that I love.

Next up, two more national parks Arches and Canyonlands and then we skeedaddle home.

Cape Blanco, Oregon to Jedediah Redwoods State Park

But first, alert, alert, alert from border to border, coast to coast and all the ships at sea.  Fred is completely distraught because I misidentified a bird in my previous post.  The cheese-it photo shows  a gray jay not a Clark's nutcracker.  Oh, the humanity!  Thanks, Trent - I'll make the correction when I get better wifi.  Whew, now Fred can get some sleep.  (Fred also wants to point out that it is not ok to feed cheese-its to wildlife.)

And now, one of my most favorite, best, most excellent beaches to visit.  Cape Blanco.

It's really the reason we came out west on this Bambi trip, so we could visit it again.  Why is it so great.  Well, let me count the ways.

First, there is no one on this beach.  Really, no one.

Miles of open beach and guess what else they have?

Agates!  This agate would be worth thousands to the right collector.  And by right collector I mean one that's blind and also doesn't know what an agate is.

I picked up many, many nice looking completely amazing rock finds on this beach.  Just a note here that if I should be found drowned someday, check my pockets for rocks.  Chances are I was not trying to commit suicide ala Virginia Woolf, I was probably just out picking up interesting rocks and wandered out too far.

Sometimes you have to work for your agate booty

Fred doing his best Vanna White impression

That rock is another great thing about this beach.  It is covered with Pelagic Cormorants, cormorant nests, cormorant babies and lots and lots of cormorant poop.  Unfortunately, the sun was in the worst spot for photos so you're stuck with a shot of Fred instead.

There are also these huge piles of whale bones, their senseless slaughter just sickens and infuriates me and.....

Oh, wait it's just driftwood

My photography skills are often sought out by strangers

Crabs also line the beach here

Sperm whale sperm or possibly kelp

Rare igneous whale offshore

Fred, stop working

In the evenings, the campers flock like lemmings with wine glasses in hand to this cliff

To watch the sun disappear for the day

The zombie survival pod never looked so good

Bank calendar photo

You can also visit this lighthouse if you're the kind of person who likes buildings with big lights on top.  We toured it on our last trip out here and we figured it probably hadn't changed much.

Look hon, our ship came in (the famous Rogue River)

See ya next time Cape Blanco, I should just buy a house near here but I would also need to buy new clothes.  Ones with more pockets.

Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park

Not so very far away, near the town of Crescent City, CA we found ourselves deep in some old growth redwoods at Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park.  Old Jed was an explorer and trapper out this way in the 1820s, who managed to get himself mauled in the face by a bear and eventually stabbed to death by some Comanches, so they named a park after him.  But I would have named it Big Ass Tree State Park because that describes it best.

Because as you wander around, that is the phrase you hear most often, as in "Wow, that's one big ass tree".

It's a bit of a challenge to photograph redwoods because you have to have some kind of scale and you can only get that by spreading your arms at the base, driving through a couple of big ones or climbing inside one.  Lucky for you guys, we know these complicated photo techniques.

Did you know that less than 4% of the original old growth redwoods remain?  Out of something like 2 million acres.  They are the world's tallest tree and can live to be over 2,000 years old.  If you have ever been in the redwoods, it boggles the mind that anyone could see a grove of them and think it was ok to saw them all down.  

Please tell me that sign isn't made of redwood

Rooty, toot, toot

Lovely, little grove really but we have to turn our eyes and Bambi eastward toward Lassen Volcano National Park.  Know what that means?  We are on the downhill slide to home, boo hoo.