Lassen Nat'l Park, CA

Our visit to Lassen Nat'l Park was a super one. This park is an area with volcanos, Lassen Peak had a series of eruption from 1914 to 1917. Mt St Helen erupted 1980, so this is an indication of what to expect there as the years pass and nature does it's thing. The lake behind us was formed when one of the eruptions moved rocks to block a stream at the time. We had super weather for our stay and enjoyed 3 days in the park.

This is Cinder Cone, a volcano (inactive). Note the trail winding up the side. After a 1.2 mile hike to this cone you then have an 700 ft ascent to the top. What makes this even more interesting is the fact that the trail is all cinders and very loose. Oh my! Les made it up much faster than I but I did make it, much to my surprise. We were rewarded with beautiful views. Check out some of our other pictures of this trail in the slide show. Oh to get to this location we drove a 7 mile gravel road. That sure did make our camper and bikes dusty and the vibration shook some things loose but the camper fared out pretty well.

This is a thermal area of Lassen, Bumpass Hell, a trail that takes you up 500 ft in a mile and then drops down 250 ft to the thermals was a much easier walk than the cinder cone trail. How interesting to see the power of the underground!

We have been able to take advantage of some Nat'l forrest campgrounds along our way. Here we are at one just outside Lassen as we make our way to our last Nat'l park stop: Great Basin Nat'l Park in Nevada.

The drive from Reno to Great Basin is a very stark and beautiful one. It surprised us that we found a campground, a Pony Express station, with wifi! A few days at Great Basin and we head east for some long driving days home. Just in time as the forecast for this area is that the cold fall weather is coming in just a few days!! That will push us home fast. Our target to arrive in PA is Oct. 12th.

Oregon Coast and visiting Aaron in Eureka

The drive south on Rt 101 was very nice. We took 3 days to make the drive and stayed at state parks. At one stop we toured a lighthouse and saw whales off the coast. The coastline is so pretty along Oregon and Northern CA. We are so looking forward to seeing Aaron at the end of this drive.

We arrived in Eureka Thursday. It was so great to see Aaron. Aaron had a super idea for us to camp with him in Shelter Cove at the south end of the Lost coast. We explored the Black sand beach with it's wild tide and tidepools. There were seals on the rocks to watch also. It was a real nice 2 days.

We had a nice disc golf game with Aaron in a Redwood course. We were impressed with Aaron's ability playing. He is also a super tutor.

We turn east now. Our plan is to visit Lassen Nat'l park and Great Basin Nat'l park then head home.

Vancouver Island, BC

We met up with my sister Lori and her husband Chris in Seattle. We all headed to British Columbia to explore Vancouver Island for a week. Ferries are a the mode of transportation between the islands. We had a 2 hours trip to V island and then a 10 min hop to Quadra Island.

Our first stay was at a house of a friend of Lori's on Quadra Island. A small island in the Discovery Island group off V island. What a lovely setting. A wonderful deck faced Heriot Bay where we watched boats and birds. We stayed 3 days here. Biking to Rebecca's Spit, picking blackberries, hunting petroglphs were some of the opportunities there.

Our second stay was at an interior park and the Ralph River campground. This island is very thinly populated with most of the population on the coast. The interior is very rugged and beautiful. We only spent one night here and with the number of misquitos, that was a good thing. But the surrounding was so worth the trip.

Our last stay was on the west side of the island at the Pacific Rim Provincal Park, Green Point, Tofino. Oh how lovely, with large pine and cedar forrest coming right up to the beach. Here we could ride our bikes on the shore, explore the coastal town of Tofino (where they have whale/bear watching and hot springs tours), watch the surfers (this is a big area for surfing), and take in some First Nation culture. We ate really well with Lori and Chris on this camping trip. Check out the Dungeoness crab they were preparing for one of our meals on the slideshow.

Monday (19th) we begin working our way down the coast to Aaron's. We are looking forward to the beautiful scenery and to get to hug our son!!

Yellowstone Nat'l Park

We had a wonderful time at Yellowstone Nat'l Park. We had 5 days to explore the park and enjoy the beautiyful weather, although with the high altitude here. the evenings were cold (31o to 330).

We enjoyed some excellent hiking along the rim of a canyon and some of the back country trails.

We biked some "off the beaten path" trails and one took us to our own private geyser display. Below you see a coyote that walked up to and around us while we viewed a thermal spring. Then in the slideshow you see a herd of buffalo that were grazing around the trail we were biking. The males were in rut and we saw some interesting behavior as the males were picking their females. Very interesing when you are standing just 25 feet away!

We arrived in Seattle Sept 8th, and are all traveling up to Vancouver Island for a week of exploration. We have a lovely trip ahead of us. We will return Sept 17th and may be able to post before we head down the Oregon coast to Aaron's.

The Badlands Nat'l Park

The scenery here is amazing. Such beauty. We are being treated here at the Badland and on our drives but beautiful wildflowers. They really dress up the already spectacular views. The first day here was rainy, but that was fine as we were so tired from the 4 long driving days to get here. We enjoyed a day to nap!

We had a nice sunny day the second day of our Badlands stay. Les and I hiked a trail to an overlook. See the ladder that was part of our trial? My thighs are going to be talking to me the next couple days.

I then dropped Les off at a trailhead to walk another 2 1/2 miles on a different trail. He enjoyed that trail although it was getting hot by then.

We drove 10 1/2 hours today (Wednesday) to go to our next destination, Yellowstone. We stopped in the town of Grey Bull which is still about 3 hours from our first campground in Yellowstone! Things are so far apart here. But we are seeing some amazing sights. We plan 5 nights in Yellowstone in three differents areas of the park. I'm afraid that we will not have cell or wifi there so we will post again later.

Aug 28 Storm in South Dakota

This only shows a small bit of what we drove into today. It is strange to voluntarily enter a storm looking like that! Thank the good Lord, there was no hail in it. Just a session of strong winds. Once we drove through this front we were back to sunny skys and 80o temps.

We were hoping to camp in a Corp cg or a State park along the Missouri River tonight but most of them are still closed from the bad flooding they had this summer. So we are in a KOA.

Tomorrow we should be in The Badlands and camping in a Nat'l Park cg. We are looking forward to slowing down now and doing some exploring.

Glad to hear that the hurricane did not do what they had predicted to the east. Fair skies ahead for us all?

August 27th Iowa Rest Stop

Here we are at a rest stop in western Iowa. They have wifi and dumping facilities at there RA's. Wow! Little things please us. ;-)

We stopped last night in Elderidge to visit with our friends John and Geralyn Osen. They treated us to a wonderful meal, we then slept in the camper parked in front of their home (they offered their guest room but we declined) and then they fed us a wonderful breakfast before we headed west.

The weather is in the 80's and sunny here in the midwest. Hope there is not bad flooding in PA.

We will post again when we can.