The Wedding (3/10/25)

 Usually when we head to L.A. (which we wouldn’t do at if we didn’t love our daughter so much lol) we take an RV so we have our own home with us. This time our daughter assured us that no place we could stay would be close enough to the festivities and she recommended a hotel or Airbnb.

We chose an Airbnb near her because we are meeting Justin’s family for the first time and wanted space to be able to have everyone over for dinner.

We actually met them all the night before our dinner at Jess and Justin’s for an impromptu dinner of pizza and beer.

Justin is from Louisiana so his family flew in for the event.

For the dinner at our place we ordered in from a couple of restaurants, keeping life simple.

Since there will be no traditional cake cutting at the wedding, Jess and Justin did it with the cake his parents brought.

The day of the wedding dawned clear but very windy. Very Windy.

I have told people how proud I am of Jess, with the way she rolled with the punches so to speak. Her original plan was to get married in the chapel area at the courthouse and do a champagne toast next door at the Beverly Hills Hotel. But the court wasn’t doing weddings the day she wanted to get married, March 7th,  so two weeks before the wedding, she had no venue and no officiant.

Luckily her good friend Cassie stepped up and offered the use of her apartment building’s rooftop sitting area, and Justin’s father got ordained as a minister for the occasion. It’s a very small wedding, 14 people.

Cassie and Jess put in a lot of work setting up a runner, decorated with vases of flowers, etc.

Before the ceremony some of us were in Cassie’s apartment getting ready when Cassie got a phone call.

Apparently the wind was so strong it was blowing over the vases and breaking them. And it was so cold, the guests were huddled in the little sitting area inside.

Jess was offered the choice of getting married outside where the wind would ruin everything within seconds, or in the alcove by the elevator where there was no wind.

She very smartly chose the alcove. No more aisle to walk down, but the 10 steps she did take were taken with a smile on her face.

After the ceremony there was some food, champagne, and some dancing while pictures were being taken.

After an hour or so we all left for the restaurant, Catch LA where we had a private room and some of the best food we have had in a long time.

From there we headed to the rooftop bar of one of their favorite bars where we were joined by a bunch of the bride and grooms friends.

There was live music and lots of dancing and we had such a great time that Paul and I stayed until after 1 am.

After decompressing the following day, we headed back home.

The Last of Summer 2024 (10/30/24)

 Our final area for exploring this summer is Nevada City, California, a historic mining town. Paul has wanted to visit here, so it was a good chance to knock it off our bucket list.

We spent one day visiting Empire Mine State Historic Park. The Empire mine was one of the richest gold mines in California, and was in operation for over 100 years, shutting down in 1956. In 1975 the mine property was bought by the state of California, and turned into a state park.

During it’s heyday, a special room was constructed, called the “Secret Room”.  Appropriately, not many people knew about the room while the mine was in operation. In it was a 3D model of the underground workings of the mine, which covered more than 5 square miles.

 

It’s very difficult to get a picture that captures the intricacies of the model, but it was very interesting to learn that visitors who tour the mine nowadays only descend one inch down on the model, and each inch represents 80 ft. Everything below the 2 inch mark is under water now.

This area favored hydraulic mining, where a high pressure cannon essentially spewed water at huge banks of gravel, breaking it apart so the gold could be more easily separated from the rock. Unfortunately this created a huge debris field that traveled downstream, clogging rivers and streams and changing the path of the water. Farms suffered to the point that lawsuits were filed, and essentially a cease and desist order was given by the courts, mostly ending hydraulic mining.

The other park we explored while in the area was Malakoff Diggins State Historic Park. Like many mining towns, during the gold rush, there were many buildings here, including 8 saloons, two churches, a school, and daily stage coach service. Like the Empire mine, the debris created by mining in this area caused the shut down of hydraulic mining.

Once we left Nevada City, we worked our way south through California, stopping several times along the way. One of the stops was Sacramento, where we attended Paul’s 50th high school reunion, and met up with his friend Robin and his partner Kim, and had a great time celebrating.

Robin and Paul were Eagle Scouts together back when they were teens. (More on Kim and Robin in a future post).

Leaving Sacramento we headed through the Fresno area, meeting up with Paul’s fraternity brothers, as usual.

Our final stop for visiting was Los Angeles, where we spent a day or so with our daughter before moving on. She is getting married in March of 2025 so, I have been shopping for “outfits” all along the western coast.

Once we got back to Lake Havasu, we had very little time to relax before preparing for our next adventure.

Lassen Volcanic National Park (10/10/24)

 Lassen Volcanic National Park, located in California, is the 50th national park I have visited (there are 63 total)!

Of the ones I have not been to, 5 are in Alaska, and I will likely never get to them. We did go to three in Alaska, but the other 5 are much more difficult to get to.  Most of the other ones on the list are places I might get to- two are in Hawaii- and since it’s the only state I haven’t been to, I see a visit there in my future.

Isle Royale National park in Michigan is not high on my list of “must see” places, but who knows.

Lassen Volcanic National Park actually contains all 4 types of volcanos- shield, cinder cone, composite, and plug dome. The last time a substantial eruption took place here was over 100 years ago, but its a very active volcanic area nonetheless. 

There are many active and colorful boiling springs, steam vents, and mud pots. We stopped by one of them on the side of the road at one point and met a lady who said that 40 years ago the mud pot was 30 yards away from its current location.

When we looked online, the campground had tons of availability for the 4 nights we wanted, so we didn’t worry about booking it. When we got to the entrance, we found out that reservations are actually required- and the only way to make them is online. Ugh, and of course, we had no cell service here.  We stopped at the park store and  were told if we drove 1 mile up the road, there is a pull off where most people get signal, and sure enough, we had just enough to log on and make our reservations. That spot was pretty much the only place we had cell signal the whole time we were in Lassen.  Each day we stopped once or twice to make sure nothing catastrophic was happening.  It was a busy pull off and usually had a couple of cars and people walking around holding up a cell phone like a divining rod looking for water.

We had enough time the day we got there to make the two mile loop around Manzanita Lake, where the campground is. The views of Mt Lassen were awesome.

Our first full day we packed a lunch and drove the scenic drive through the park. We stopped to hike the 3 mile Bumpass Hell Trail.  The trail leads to and through a geothermal area with mud pots.

 We continued down the road to the visitor center, and on the way back we stopped at “hot rock”. Hot rock isn’t hot anymore, but it was, back in 1915. Two days after Lassen erupted on May 19, 1915, this rock, which is a piece of dacite lava, was still hot and steaming.

 

An avalanche carried this 300 ton rock 5 miles down the side of Lassen Peak.

Speaking of Lassen Peak, one of the hikes is a 5 mile hike to the peak, with 2000 ft of gain.  We really wanted to do this hike but we have done so much hiking the last few days, we felt we needed to take a full day off ahead of it. So, our second day in the park we did some house keeping, read books, and played cards.

It was worth doing nothing because the following day we packed a lunch and headed up the peak.

It was so warm when we got to the trailhead that I almost left my jacket behind, but I remembered a sign that says its always windy at the top, so I (thankfully) threw it in my pack.

The views started out pretty good, but of course they got even better the further up we went.

About halfway up, the trail became tight switchbacks.  One side was out of the wind, but the other end was unbelievably cold, and blowing so hard, you couldn’t keep a hat on.

At the top there was a pile of lava to explore, which we did, for a bit. We took advantage of the wind protection to eat our lunch.

Our stay at Lassen was pretty short, and we moved on the following day.

Lava Beds National Monument (10/8/24)

 I didn’t really think when we decided to check out Lava Beds NM that we were continuing with our volcano exploration, but we were. Lava Beds NM is home to Medicine Lake Volcano, which is actually the largest volcano, by volume ( there is always a caveat) in the cascade range. 

The difference is, its a shield volcano. It doesn’t have a tall cone shaped peak like a composite volcano (think Rainier, etc) it is actually shaped like a shield, and has numerous small cones. The island of Hawaii has shield volcanos.

We stopped at the visitor center first, to get our cave pass. Everyone is required to have a pass that shows they attended the orientation that talks about the bats and their safety.

Nearby is Mushpot Cave, the only cave that it permanently lit- all the others require you to bring your own flashlights (you can also borrow them from the visitor center)

Our plan to hike to the top of Schonchin Butte, a cinder cone, early in the day to beat the heat, was thwarted by 12 year olds. A bus load of kids is camping in the park and they arrived at the trail head at the same time as us. I love the fact that they are outdoors, learning, and the bus driver said they are on a 4 day trip- with no cell phones.

That doesn’t mean I want to hike with them, so we moved on to our next item, Black Crater. This area has a lot of dark lava, which makes it stand out.

From here we got our first good look at Mount Shasta in the distance. 

The monument itself has over 240 known lava tubes, or caves. Not all of them are accessible, and not all of the accessible ones are open all the time. It depends where the bats are- in fact, if you happen upon a bat in a cave, you are required to leave the cave.

Our first cave of the day was Boulevard Cave.  The accessible caves are categorized by their difficulty. From walking upright, to having to crawl in some areas, on to being on all fours for much of the journey. We mostly stuck with the easy ones, although Boulevard is listed as moderate. It was a short walk till we got to the moderate area and turned around.

The second cave, Valentine, is much bigger and looks totally different. It had several columns throughout, requiring us to make constant choices as to which way to go.

After a few turns, my paranoia reared its ugly head and I wanted to turn around. I get sort of claustrophobic when I go too far underground, in the dark. Picturing us getting lost in a massive cave soured me a little on caving, so Paul explored several other caves on his own.

The following day we were able to hike Schonchin Butte Trail. The trail, built by the CCC in the 1930s, leads to a fire tower, also built by the CCC.

The view of the surrounding area from the fire tower was worth the trip up the hill.

In the afternoon we did the short scenic drive which took us past several more caves we could explore.

We did check out a few of them (Paul more than me) and then decided we had seen enough and were ready to move on to our next destination.

In keeping with our Volcano “theme” we headed to Mt Shasta for a couple of days of exploring, staying in the small town of McCloud.

Mt. Shasta is a little more challenging to to explore, with no visitor center that we could find, and not too many hiking trails.

We did do a  couple of short hikes, and a drive up the mountain as far as we could- until we were told we were on private property(ski resort) and needed to leave.

The other hikes we found in the area were good, even if they weren’t on the mountain. The McCloud River Falls trail follows the McCloud river to several waterfalls.

 

We started at the lower falls, hiked past the middle falls, and turned around after we saw the upper falls.

All in all about 4 miles.

Our final hike in the area was a little bit out of town but gets great reviews. It is the Castle Dome trail in Castle Craig State Park.

The trail starts as a meander through the woods, with some steep sections. We were warned that the easy part ends once you leave the woods and start hiking on rock.

 

It definitely took some eye hand coordination in some areas, and some scrambling, but it was fun.

The further up the trail we got, the better the views were, of course. Unfortunately, after 3 miles and 1800 ft of gain, I started to not feel great.

I was lightheaded and nauseous, signs of dehydration/altitude sickness. As much as I hated to give up on the peak, I sent Paul on without me.

Although it was less than a half mile to the peak, it was another 250 feet of gain. We had cell signal, which made him more comfortable  ( I think he texted me 6 times.) leaving me behind.

Moving on from Shasta, our next stop was….you guessed it, another volcano.