While on a tour of Shasta Dam we saw a couple of beautiful butterflies, and later saw a caterpillar.
Monthly Archives: May 2013
Shasta Dam – we took a tour of the inside
We drove back to Shasta Dam today and took a tour down in the “guts” of the dam. We didn’t know it’s the second concrete dam in the U.S. – and twice as big as Hoover Dam!
Here are some pictures of the dam:
Mount Shasta – WOW!
We took a day and drive “around” Mount Shasta. It’s very unique, at least to me, in that it is a mountain that is not part of a range, but stands alone. We were able to get photos from several different vantage points as we drove around it.
Here are some photos:
Taking great photos with our new camera
Jeff recently bought a new camera and is having fun taking photos with it. We decided we needed a new one while at Yosemite for the Moonlight Tour – our camera at the time had no way to adjust the shutter speed and none of the pictures came out.
Now Jeff has a really nice Nikon!
This new category of posts will include photos that Jeff takes just for the artistic nature of the subject.
Here are some to start off:
Lassen Mountain – a recent volcano that erupted twice in 1915
We took a day and drove southeast from where we’re staying to visit the Lassen Mountain Natl Park and Volcanic area. The day was very cloudy and overcast unfortunately, but it was a real nice drive.
We were surprised to learn that Lassen Mountain exploded in two volcanic eruptions just in 1915 – which is a blink of the eye in geologic terms!
As we drive up into the mountain area it got colder and finally there was still a lot of snow on the ground. We could only go as far as the “desolation area” and the rest of the road was closed until June.
The desolation area was what they called the area that was destroyed by the lava flow. There are still lava rocks laying around where they landed when they were blown out of the mountain!
People lived in the area at the time of the eruption, one man was awakened by his dog and saw the mountain bulging and smoking. He ran 3 miles to warn neighbors and they all would have died if they hadn’t gotten away as fast as they did.
He and some other people hiked up to see the damage 3 days after the eruption, and barely escaped again when it erupted again!
The mountain itself is fantastic – you can see that it was blown apart by a volcano due to the concave shape of it.
Here are pictures from our trip through the National Park and of the volcanic mountain, still covered in snow in early May!
Shasta Lake Cave – a very interesting tour!
While at Shasta Lake we discovered they have a cave that is high up in the cliffs above the lake. The tour starts across the lake with a boat ride, then a bus that goes up the cliffs about 800 feet to get to the entrance to the cave.
We were the only people on the tour (it’s still early in the season) but there were 75 2nd-graders there for a special kids tour. We rode across the lake with them and on the bus with about a third of them. Boy, that many 2nd-graders sure can get noisy!! But they were all so cute!
We had a different tour guide than the kids as they had a special tour for schools.
The cave tour was very interesting – the “rooms” were at different levels and sometimes we had to walk a ways to get from one room to another. We learned that the cave was discovered back in 1887 by a native American who was tracking a mountain lion that had been bothering livestock. He climbed up practically sheer cliff walls following the lion and saw the cave opening. Since he had no equipment for entering a dark cave, he went about his business and told some neighbors about the cave. A year later he and a friend went into the cave and started exploring.
It wasn’t until the 1950s that much of the cave was really explored. Two brothers, seeking to find additional rooms, blasted rock pretty randomly hoping to break into other rooms. Sometimes they had clues such as air flow or water, sometimes they just decided to blast this wall or that wall. They destroyed some of the formations doing this. Since it’s privately owned, they installed steps and the early cave guides actually broke off stalactites by tapping on them with hammers to show the people on the tour. They also allowed people to wander around on their own with just flashlights! One ten-year old boy discovered the largest and most impressive room by accident because he was crawling around in the dark. Yipes!
As we had climbed quite a few stairs while on the tour getting from one room to another, we had to go back down. The part of the tour climbing back to where the busses waited for us was outside along the cliff wall where they had cut and made steps. Beautiful views! treacherous staircase though, narrow steep steps so I was careful going down and then would stop periodically to look around.
Here are some pictures Jeff took of the cave:
Beautiful Shasta Lake – man made and only about 60 years old
We’re staying just a couple of miles from Shasta Lake this week, so we spent some time at the lake. It’s quite inaccessible except in a few places because the hills surrounding it are very VERY steep.
Shasta Lake was only formed about 60 years ago when they built a huge dam to create the lake and provide drinking water for the area. A few small towns are now underwater because of the dam!
Here are some pictures of the lake, the surrounding hills and the dam:
Heading north – we’re now near Mt. Shasta in Shasta Lake
Yesterday we travelled north to Shasta Lake where we’ll stay for a week. We’re at the Fawndale Lodge and RV Resort, a small place but very pleasant. It should get to the 70s and possibly low 80s during the week, and it rained last night. I’m glad it rained, we got a huge amount of pollen and dust on everything while in Gold Run and this cleaned it up real good!
There isn’t a fenced area for dogs, but there’s a large lawn area surrounded by trees and when Jeff and Laddy saw another resident with a Lab off-leash there Jeff decided to take a chance and let Laddy off-leash. He was very good, playing with the Lab, chasing a ball, and never once going away from the area. We’re glad to see that so we’ll let him off-leash every day here and do some training with a whistle to better ensure that he won’t stray and will come back when called (with the promise of a treat of course!)
While here we plan to visit Mt. Shasta and Shasta Lake and also see what else might be in this area.
Birthday Dinner for Jeff at a nearby restaurant
It was Jeff’s birthday yesterday and I took him to dinner. We checked online to find nearby restaurants, and other than one just across from the freeway from our RV park we would have to drive 30 minutes to get to a restaurant.
We’d walked by this restaurant called the Monte Vista Inn a couple of times in the morning and weren’t sure if it was closed up or what. It looked deserted although the flower bed was sort of tended to.
But, we found a website for it online and it looked like good food so we thought we’d take a chance. WOW! This was a really great restaurant! The food was outstanding and the service was great!
I put a review on Yelp, here’s a link to it.
a GREAT dog park in Grass Valley, CA (near Gold Run)
We’ve taken Laddy a couple of times to a dog park in Grass Valley – it’s about 30 minutes from where we’re staying, but is the closest dog park. It’s at Condon Park and it’s GREAT.
Here’s a link to my review of it.