Today we visited Lava Beds National Monument and Lassen Volcanic National Park. Here’s some highs and lows. Best wildlife: the butterfly that landed on Paula’s hand at lunchtime. Honorable mentions for the butterfly that landed on my chair, a random dragonfly, and mister lizard, and mister swallow. Worst signage: a description of the “The End of the Modoc War” which neglected to mention that it wasn’t actually a war it was part of the systematic genocide of the Native Americans…
Up, up, up, this morning along windy highway 242, though pine forests. At 4,000 feet suddenly the woods were full of white flowers that looked like snowballs on a stick. Higher still, and suddenly the trees were gone, and we were at the edge of a lava flow, a large field of aa only a few hundred years old. Aa is the cindery, sharp lava beloved of Scrabble players. Still after a few hundred years, plants start to take root….
Yesterday we headed up into the mountains to Belknap Hot Springs. This little resort by the side of the MeKenzie River… … features traditional chainsaw art (possibly fiberglass, I didn’t check)… … a machine for moving dead trees… … a strange fountain featuring a leaking jazz band… … a hot spring fed swimming pool at 103 F, and deep in the woods, a secret water garden. Splashing around in the fast flowing ponds was this little guy, an American Dipper….