Week Six (added 2/13/11)

Trail Tales

Week Six
September 13th through September 19th, 2010

Monday, September 13, 2010

Upper North Falls

Mom left her friends’ house this morning and visited Silver Falls State Park which is East of Salem, Oregon. She did quite a bit of hiking and brought back some beautiful pictures. She was back at grandma and grandpas house in time for a BBQ Beef Rib dinner that grandpa cooked. He is really a good cook and I ought to know because I got to sample some of the ribs! I enjoyed spending the night alone with grandma and grandpa, but I am glad that mom is back because I missed her!

Middle North Falls

South Falls

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

We said goodbye to grandma and grandpa this morning and started our journey south. We went through Crater Lake, which was beautiful and sunny today. Mom drove around the rim and took lots of pictures.

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We also stopped at the Rogue River Gorge and Natural Bridge parks and did a little hiking. The gorge was amazing to see all that water pouring through such a narrow canyon, and it was cool to see the river disappear under ground at Natural Bridge and then reappear a few hundred feet down- stream!

Rogue River Gorge

Water coming out from under Natural Bridge

I was pretty pooped out after such a busy day and we went on to stay the night with mom’s brother. We had a nice visit with him and his wife again. Tomorrow we cross into California.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Black Butte

Well, we are in California today. We saw Mt. Shasta and Black Butte and mom decided at the last minute to take the Highway 89 cut-off from Interstate 5.

Mount Shasta

It was kinda cool that we did take highway 89 because we took a side trip along the McCloud River Loop and hiked to 3 beautiful waterfalls.

Lower Falls

Middle Falls

Upper Falls

After leaving there we stopped at Burney Falls and then cut through Lassen Volcanic National Park.

Burney Falls

Lassen Peak

We stopped to see mom’s niece who lives on the south side of the park and spend a few days with her. She has a cat named KC who I’m not too sure liked me, but we got along ok. Mom’s niece lives in a cabin type house in the mountains and it is really cozy. It has a pretty fireplace and mom’s niece has lots and lots of wood stacked up getting ready for winter.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Kings Creek, Lassen Park

Mom and her niece went hiking in Lassen Park this morning and left me home alone with KC. I tried to talk KC into stirring up some trouble while they were gone, but KC would have none of it. She said “Cats are above that kind of behavior and only a dog would think of such a thing.” Well, I decided then and there that it was time to teach KC a lesson and I was going to see to it that there was a good amount of cat fur flying around when mom and her niece got home. KC quickly convinced me that my decision was a bad one and we agreed to leave the house clean, fur free, and to get alone by leaving one another alone. Cats may not always be fun, but she probably saved us both from getting in trouble, so I decided she’s not so bad after all.

Emerald Lake, Lassen Park

KC, the Great Saver From Trouble, upon her throne!

Friday, September 17, 2010

We left mom’s niece’s house this morning and traveled to Reno, Nevada. There was some sort of convention in town and mom couldn’t get a hotel room anywhere so we had to travel on to Carson City. Mom isn’t real happy about this because we are meeting a friend of ours at the bus station in Reno early tomorrow morning. She said we will just have to get up early and go back to meet her!

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Mom and I got up real early this morning and went back to Reno to pick up our friend. From there we headed south again. We stopped at the Nevada Railroad Museum and then continued on to June Lake where we met mom’s aunt and uncle from Arizona and cousins from Southern California.

June Lake

Mom rented a “camp trailer” from the resort where we were all spending the week. It turned out that the “camp trailer” had quite a lot of personality and we all had lots of laughs! The trailer is very old and the bathroom is one where a person has to step through the shower in order to reach the toilet. The refrigerator in the trailer was pink! None of us had ever seen a pink refrigerator before! Still in all, the trailer was dry and comfortable and we all decided that we had enjoyed staying in it with all the fun memories it gave us! We sat around a nice campfire this evening, but the real fun started about 4 o’clock in the morning.

It seems that bears are quite a common site in the campground so everyone is careful not to leave food out anywhere to encourage them. Just as 4 a.m. rolled around, the alarm in mom’s 4-Runner started going off. Mom shouted “Oh no! Bears!” and started pulling on clothes. Mom grabbed a flashlight and headed for the door, stopping to peak out to see if she could see any bears. Mom’s friend was yelling “Be careful!” Mom didn’t see any bears, so she cautiously stepped outside and started looking around the runner. I heard her say “Oh oh, we left the back window down when we unloaded.” Then she leaned to peak in the side window. She screamed and jumped back! “A raccoon!” she shouted. And the three of us watched as a big fat raccoon climbed out the back window. About that time the water heater in a nearby trailer fired up and mom thought it was a bear coming at her. She spun around so fast she almost fell down. I won’t repeat what she said at this point because it wasn’t a word that is used in polite company. After recovering from her bear scare, mom went to the runner to open the front door to see how much damage the raccoon had done. Just as she touched the handle, she jumped back again spewing more swear words that I won’t repeat. We all stood by amused and watched as three more big fat raccoons crawled, one at a time, out of the back window of the runner.

After all this excitement, mom suddenly realized that she had to pee really bad and went running back into the trailer. Unfortunately, she kinda missed the toilet when she sat down and created a waterfall over the edge. Fortunately, as previously mentioned, the shower was right there so the mess was easily cleaned up later.

Unfortunately, the shower is a flexible metal of some sort and so every move a person makes is accompanied by the loud pop of thin metal. As mom moved to get out of the bathroom, it seemed like there was enough metal popping noises to wake the entire camp! In addition, the toilet seat cover flopped down and “bit” mom in the butt when she stood up! All mom could say when she finally got out of the bathroom and back in from rolling up the back window was “I’m sure glad I didn’t leave the keys in the runner; that family of raccoons might have taken it for a joy ride! Anyone ready for coffee?”

Sunday, September 19, 2010

This morning we all went for a drive around the June Lake Loop and saw the other nearby lakes. Then we went into the town of Mammoth for lunch and grocery shopping. When we got home, mom’s friend solved the problem of the biting toilet by tying a rope around the seat to hold it against the tank. Then, after the excitement of last night, we were all tired so we took a nap. We were woken up by the runner alarm going off again and mom went running back outside to see what the problem was this time. It was just a boring ole pinecone bouncing off the hood on its way to the ground. Mom continued to lock the doors after that, but didn’t set the alarm anymore.