We were up at 5:00 a.m. this morning, because we were driving to Reno, Nevada, to pick up a special guest. The sun was not yet peeking over the hill-tops when we were on the road.
The valleys were filled with fog as we headed east back towards Nevada. In this remote section of California, we had absolutely no phone service anywhere for an hour's drive around us. So we had to time our drive to be where we could make a phone call at exactly 7:00 a.m. Why?!? We were trying to get camping reservations for our visit to Olympic National Park in two weeks. They open reservations for one campground six months early, then another campground two weeks early. We really needed a spot in Fairholme Campground in Olympic National Park in two weeks! So we stopped where we had a good phone signal in the town of Susanville, and Mark opened the rec.gov website. We had already chosen our favorite site and confirmed that it was available. Denisa counted down the seconds to 7:00 a.m. sharp Pacific Time (when the reservations open), and Mark pushed the request button. What?!?! It was already taken? Impossible! We have to say that playing the game to get a spot in a national park campground is not a fun game. All of the campsites were filled within 5 seconds after 7:00 when they opened. After all that careful planning, we weren't successful this morning. (Update: Mark continued to check the rec.gov web site periodically. Several days later he found an opening at Fairholme campground. Someone had cancelled their reservation they made six months ago, and he snagged it before anyone else found it. We only got two nights, instead of the three that we hoped for, but we were not homeless two weeks from now.)
Our moods couldn't be soured with that failed attempt at a campground reservation, because our special guest was in the air and headed our way. Our granddaughter Carter, and our daughter-in-law Jordan were flying to Reno! Jordan was coming for a medical continuing education class, so we were picking up Carter to travel the last leg of our journey to our son's wedding.
They were both up this morning at 3:00 a.m. Central Time, to make the flights out of Kansas City. If that sounds early, remember that's 1:00 a.m. Pacific Time! When they landed in Reno, Nevada, at 9:30 a.m. Pacific Time, they had already been awake a very long time. After sitting through two plane rides, Carter was ready to go hiking! But then we had the drive from Reno to Lassen Volcanic National Park. Our closest route took us through some road construction that resulted in 5 stops for one-way traffic. That added another hour to our trip. We were really ready for a hike by the time we got into the national park!
Our first stop was the visitor center to buy a national park passport book for Carter. Denisa wished she would have gotten one fifty national park visits ago, and we won't let the same thing happen to our grandchildren! We got the first official national park stamp, even though as first-timers we accidentally got the date stamped upside down. Maybe that will be a new tradition to always stamp the date wrong. We bought a stuffed wolf for little brother Eli, and picked up the Junior Ranger book. Carter has to complete four pages in the book to get the junior ranger patch from Lassen Volcanic Park.
Our next stop was to Emerald Lake--right along the park road.
Then we were just hoping for a parking place so we could take the park's most popular hike to Bumpass Hell. Mark and Denisa took this hike yesterday, but we were anxious for Carter to see it. She was most impressed with the snow that was still on this high trail in July.
But she used all that pent-up energy from a plane ride and a car drive when we got started on the hike. She was happy to be the hike leader.
She loved the big trees, and we had a beautiful day for exploring a national park. We were looking for things mentioned in her junior ranger book. We needed to find rocks that were black, striped, broken, sparkling, pink, smooth . . . so we could check them off in her book.
The highlight of this trail was the valley where all the geothermal features were clustered. This was like visiting a smaller version of Yellowstone. But Carter was forcing a smile because she thought it smelled TERRIBLE here.
She hated the sulfur smell belching out of the fumaroles and mud pots. She was just glad that Gram had a strawberry sucker in her pack that she could hold under her nose to block the sulfur smell.
She licked and sniffed that sucker all the way through Bumpass Hell.
Our favorite part was the blue-green water pool steaming behind us. But it was hard to concentrate when everything smelled so bad.
Then we started the uphill hike out of that stinky valley. It was harder to be enthusiastic about hiking when it was uphill and you're getting tired.
But we talked about volcanoes, and it was fun to see the remnants of the volcanoes that had erupted in this mountain range.
She was a trooper, and by the end of the hike we deemed her a certified national park hiker! She said, "My thighs are huge!" after more than three miles on the trail.
We stopped again at the snow patch at the beginning of the hike for a picture with Mount Lassen and Lake Anne in the background.
That slippery snow tripped up Carter, and Grandude took a picture of her falling in the snow.
She wanted a picture of Grandude also falling in the snow, and he quickly obliged.
Then we got the classic shot of her throwing a July snow ball at the camera.
We collected more information about the trees and rocks to finish up more pages in that junior ranger book. Was this a fir or a hemlock?
By this time Carter had been awake for 14 hours since her early morning wake-up time. Besides that, she had covered a lot of ground today. We joked about the number of states she had been in today--Kansas, Missouri to the airport, landed in Colorado, then another flight to Nevada, and then we drove her to California. It was a five-state day for our little traveler! We weren't surprised when she fell asleep on our way to our picnic spot at Lake Manzanita.
She was really sleeping good! So we kept driving, because we thought that sleeping was more important than eating right now.
After a good hour's nap, we had arrived to another destination that she had been excited about--The Subway Cave Lava Tube. She woke up with a smile and was ready for another hike. We put on our stylish head lamps and started down the steps into the cave.
This tube was formed during a volcanic eruption. As hot lava ran down the mountain, it cooled faster on the outside. The cooling lava formed the walls of the tube, while the hotter insulated lava continued flowing. That left the tube we were walking into.
It was a pleasant 46 degrees once we got inside the tube.
Subway Cave Lava Tube is 1/3 mile long and it was very dark inside. We all turned off our head lamps, and we couldn't see our hands held right in front of our faces.
Carter was excited and said, "I'm walking where lava was!" Once we got to the end of the 1/3-mile trail, she wanted to do it again--so we did!
As we got to the end of our second lap, it was nice to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Our 46-degree temperature quickly turned up the heat as we walked back up the stairs into the sunshine.
We made the 14-mile drive back to the campground, and we were glad to see that the weekend crowds had left and it was quiet again. Carter almost fell asleep again on the short drive back to the trailer. So we cooked a quick dinner and made beds and were in bed by 8:15. That's 10:15 central time. This little girl that was in five states today, and became a certified national park hiker, and a junior ranger, was tired! (and so were her grandparents).
