Lassen Volcanic National Park

When we were debating on what to do for Labor Day, I happened across Lassen National Volcanic Park. JD and I had never heard of it before, but we love National Parks so decided that the 3 hour drive to get there would be more than worth it.  We had a blast in volcano land. It is kind of weird to think about living on a volcano chain. Mt Lassen is an active volcano but the stretch goes all the way up to British Columbia, so the peaks that we have enjoyed since moving to Oregon including: Crater Lake, Mt St Helens, Mt Jefferson, Mt Hood, Mt Rainier, etc are all volcanos, and a lot of them are active ones too. Kind of neat, the more we learn about these peaks, the more we are able to notice the changes in geography and landscape created by these volcanic cones.

Lassen last erupted in 1915, and it is a beautiful park. We enjoyed walking around Manzanita Lake, seeing the "Hot Rock"-a two ton piece of lava that was tossed from the volcano over 3 miles and was still warm when the photographer took a picture of it back in 1915. We hiked Bumpass Hell, a mini Yellowstone of sorts complete with sulpher air, geysers, mud pots, and fumeroles. We were able to enjoy a gorgeous day and views of the different peaks as we hiked and spent time together as a family. It was also a hot and sunny day. I had brought along 6 waterbottles filled with ice water as well as 5 large gatorades and we drank everything except one Gatorade during this little day trip.

On our way back home we also stopped by Burney Falls, a California State Park that was beautiful! It felt so good to hike down to the level of the falls, the canyon was shaded and the water cooled everything down, complete with a nice breeze through the canyon we were able to cool off, a welcome relief after hiking around in 95-ish degree heat all day.

It was a really fun day, I absolutely love doing things like this with my family. There is something about hiking and being together that is just plain awesome.

 

L.L. Stub State Park

Free weekend!!!!  We are all still in recovery mode from having a baby, school, visitors, etc that we decided to stay a little bit closer to home.  We were able to go to L.L. Stub State Park for the first time.  I was going crazy without going hiking or being in trees or seeing ocean so our adventure was just the medicine that I needed.  We were able to hike around the park including part of the Veronia/Banks Trail-which I guess is a big deal, I don't know.  Porter was a champ, loved his Ergobaby carrier, and slept the whole time.  I was pretty worn out physically by the time we were getting back in the car, but my goodness it felt good to hike again.

Horse Tail Falls Loop

We went and did the Horse Tail Falls Loop in Columbia River Gorge today.  We are having 80 degree sunny days right now so it was nice to be in a misty, windy, canyon hiking around.  We got to see Horse Tail Falls, Oneonta Falls, Oneonta Gorge, Ponytail Falls, and a lot of people hiking with their dogs.  

Part of the trail involved going across a steel bridge that has been approved by engineers to hold one person at a time.  The panorama makes it look pretty bad but it is not all crooked just not 'fully stable' according to the signs.

Birthday on the Beach

Another block done means another weekend adventure for us!  This was a fantastic birthday weekend.  Today we went to Munson Creek Falls State Park followed by Cape Overlook State Park.  Cape Overlook was fun.  There were beached jelly fish so we had fun scooping them up with sand dollars and putting them back into the ocean.  It was so nice to enjoy a sun shiny day and be together after another long couple of weeks.  Before heading home we stopped by the Tillamook cheese factory.  Hopefully we have a few more weekends of sunshine before the rain comes.

Astoria

For this weekend's adventure we drove up to the Evergreen State and hit Astoria & Seaside in Oregon.  The coast has been socked in with a nasty marine layer all week so I was shocked when we got to Seaside to blue skies and pretty warm temperatures.  We first went to the Astoria Column.  It was dedicated in 1926 and is basically a really tall column that you can climb 196 stairs to the top and have a neat view of Astoria, Columbia River, Oregon, Washington, Astoria-Megler Bridge, and the ocean.  The side of the column has different frames of Astorian history and is pretty cool.  You can buy little wooden planes in the gift shop and people will through them from the top of the column and watch them circle down (with kids anxiously waiting to catch them), they had a burial canoe, and that is about it.  It is kind of a random landmark, but it is worth going to, especially on a sunny day.  We then drove up to Washington and explored Cape Disappointment which has two lighthouses and a Lewis and Clark exhibit.  On our way home we stopped in Seaside to eat our fancy peanut butter sandwiches.  Before leaving we stopped in the candy shop, The Seaside Candyman, mainly because it was playing the Candyman song from Willy Wonka and how can you resist that?  It was FULL of salt water taffy.  When we have more time I definitely want to see what some of the 170 taffy flavors are someday.  It was a really fun day, I just wish we could spend time together like that more than once every 2 weeks.  The next activities should be interesting, we are going into territory where I have never been: Mt Hood & Sauvie Island.

Cooper Mountain Nature Park

We live in an area with a lot of 'parks'.  While there are your typical soccer field and playground parks.  There are also quite a few nature parks which entails pieces of wilderness and trails.  We are right below the Cooper Mountain Nature Park, which has multiple trails.  We were walking the Little Prairie Loop Trail tonight and came across this: the little prairie.  At first I couldn't figure out why there was a sign and two benches looking at this field until JD pointed out that this was the namesake of the trail we were on.  It is a pretty funny nature park, I can't wait to see what the big prairie looks like.

Silver Falls

We had a blast at Silver Falls State Park yesterday.  While not doing the entire Trail of Ten Falls, we did do 5.5 miles of the loop and saw 8 of them. My gracefulness cut the trek a little short with a bloody knee and scuffed up ankle and hands-not bad, just not very fun. Silver Falls is a really amazing place though.  We loved walking behind the falls, looking at crazy trees growing out of stumps and fallen down trees, and driving through the Christmas Tree Farms on the way to the park (those are not grassy rolling hills in the pictures, those are full grown Christmas Trees, it is crazy).  We are definitely going to try and make it back when the leaves are on in a month or so.  Sorry there are so many pictures, it was hard to decide which ones to add.  I had fun (probably a little too much) playing with the manual settings during this hike, so there were a lot to choose from.  Just click on any picture to get a bigger view.

Joshua Tree National Park

We hiked around Joshua Tree National Park today and it was so cool!  It was outside of Palm Springs in the desert.  Crazy drive going from rain and 65 degrees to hot sun and 97 degrees in the matter of 20 minutes, just by crossing a 'mountain'.  The cacti were in bloom and there were tons of Joshua Trees (go figure).  National Park week is awesome too, no fees!

Waterfall Canyon

Christie was nice enough to come on yet another fall hike with me yesterday. Waterfall Canyon was beautiful. The leaves were on along the entire trail. Chris is fun to hike with because she is crazy. Ever since her rock climbing class she has the need to plaster herself to all rock faces. This hike was momentous because the last time I went up Waterfall, I had a blood clot and didn't know it. I had to stop a bazillion times to catch my breath and slow down my heart rate and couldn't figure out what was wrong and why I felt so crappy until 6 weeks later when I was in the hospital and it all suddenly made sense. Yesterday the only main stops were to take pictures and I was super surprised when we were suddenly at the base of the waterfall. Fun times.

Hiking

Erin and I went hiking at Donut Falls this weekend up Big Cottonwood Canyon(yes the same place I was throwing snowballs at JD just 1 week ago). We had SO much fun. It has been a long long time since we went on an adventure and I can't think of a better person to go on adventures with. I also love having a fellow lover of fall with me. Erin's birthday is in November, and while not quite as cool as October, it is in the best season. We took a ton of pictures as we walked through yellow quakies and gathered leaves for Erin's clincals. I am so grateful to have such a wonderful Kindred Spirit as Erin.