During our drive North, I realized one of the things we forgot at home was the toiletry bag. Sure we could and did buy new toothbrushes and deodorant, borrow toothpaste and brushes, which was enough to get us by but prescription medicines had to be given up for 5 days. I later realized I'd also forgotten all the eggs, a carton and 3 dozen, that I planned on using for the two breakfasts I was in charge of cooking.
Immediately upon our arrival at Paulina Lake we realized there were mass amounts of mosquitoes at the campground. The mosquitoes tormented us all day long with the exception of maybe a couple hours when it was too warm. Seriously I'd never experienced mosquitoes so bad before; we constantly slapped, swatted, and waved them away for the entire stay. We brought lots of mosquito bites home with us.
I took this picture at night with my on-board flash. All the white specks are mosquitoes and nats.
The first night was so cold that the dog bowl froze over. Froze! Many of us -not the trailer campers- were unprepared for the cold nights. I only had a hoodie sweatshirt for evening warmth. Luckily Shelly and Nick brought extra blankets for us, it helped us survive the nights. Burr.
On our first full day there, I dropped my sunglasses down between some rocks in the very cold lake. After trying unsuccessfully to fish them out with a stick, I had to get in and grab them out on my own.
One evening I locked the keys in the car, in the ignition with the auxiliary on. I'd been helping Dave blow up his air mattress, then locked and shut the door. Gah!
Luckily Dave works on the Ferry system in Washington and deals with idiots like me all the time. He knows how to wedge open a door enough to get a hanger in to hook the lock. The hanger was wimpy and it wasn't looking good. Walt and Dave had been working on it for at least 15 minutes.
I realized that with the ignition on we could roll down the window. Nick and I went to the other side and tried with a marshmallow roasting stick and IT WORKED! I was so relieved that I was hardly noticed the mosquitoes that night.
Josh grabbed the camera and was our photo journalist. Too bad he didn't get a picture of me opening the window!
I think that's it for the bad news! Now on to good news.
We camped in Newberry National Volcanic Monument, inside a volcanic caldera, so there was a lot of volcanic sights to see.
This is Paulina Peak from the Paulina Lake Lodge.
We hiked a 0.8 mile trail that curved and climbed through a portion of Big Obsidian Flow. The lava flowed about 1300 years ago and left a huge area of pumice and obsidian.
Check out this arial shot here. It's huge! And the part we walked on was just a tiny section.
It was easy to imagine being on a different planet while walking through the area.
Josh could lift up massive rocks like the were weightless because he's so strong. Or maybe because it's just pumice.
It just ends and becomes forest. So interesting.
There was Lava River Cave , a lava tube, about 25 miles from our campground.
Dave and I stayed out with the dogs but everyone else took the 1 mile underground self-tour. We were there close to closing time so no one actually made it to the end.
Initially I thought it would be similar to the Subway Cave that we visited near Lassen Park but Walt said it was very different with a lot more formations.
We also went to Paulina Falls on Paulina Creek that comes from Paulina Lake. (Say that three times fast.)
The falls erode the soft dirt under the rocks, which eventually causes the face to crumble moving the falls back. That's why there are so many boulders at the base.
I spy Josh.
Swimming near our campsite wasn't really viable due to a swampy grass area.
So we drove just down the road to a different area of the lake that had a small beach.
The water was cold so there wasn't much swimming but Shelly and Nick managed to get used to it.
I've posted a picture of Carley having a crying tantrum and to be fair here is a picture of Josh in a pouting tantrum. I think he'd stayed up too late too many nights in a row. Everything made him mad.
While sitting near the lake we saw an Osprey circling for food. A Bald Eagle dove at him and that turned into a fight between the two birds. The Osprey would come at the Eagle from above and the Eagle would quickly turn upside down with his talons toward the Osprey and then back over. They went at it for a minute or so before the Eagle dove to the water to scoop up a fish and flew low across the lake with the Osprey following closely.
It happened so close and was so amazing to see but unfortunately my camera was too far away and I wasn't going to miss seeing nature at work just to run and grab it. What a treat for our last night there.
Phew! That's it. What a long post.
No comments:
Post a Comment