Day 4: Moving on to Tulelake, CA

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We start the day with a nice breakfast with a family at a neighboring campsite. Zach has been playing soccer with one of their sons so they invite us over. They have so much stuff that they need a decent-sized trailer to haul it all...and it can hardly be called camping. After breakfast, it takes us about an hour and a half to break everything down and pack the car, which is less than I thought it would so we're out on the road earlier than we'd planned. It turns out to be a good thing, because we've got a long day of driving ahead of us. We head east through some scenic countryside, the road hugging the Trinity River as it passes through the Trinity National Forest. I watch many taking advantage of the river, fishing, kayaking and rafting as I drive along. This really is nice country.

We stop at a nice little historic town in gold rush country called Weaverville for lunch. It's pretty small but we find one of the neatest places we've ever stopped to eat called Mama Llama. I'm not sure they'll win any awards for the name, but the food was good and the decor in the place itself was cool (I'll have to do a review on yelp). After our little rest stop, we're back on the road. Farther along we pass through the Whiskeytown National Recreation Area and the Whiskeytown Lake (this is gold rush country, after all, so I wouldn't consider Whiskeytown all that unusual a name!). It's very scenic and a busy with boaters, swimmers and many others just enjoying a Saturday in the summertime out on the lake. Not long after we hit the Interstate and the speedometer picks up as we head north on I-5. Pretty soon we can see Mount Shasta, one of the volcanoes in the Pacific Rim of Fire. It's considered dormant cause it hasn't erupted since the late 1700's but it pops off every 600 years or so (anyone remember Mount St. Helens eruption a few years back?). A few little tidbits: at over 14,000 feet, it's the second-highest peak in the Cascade Range (after Mt. Ranier in Washington), at over 85 cubic miles it's the most voluminous stratovolcano in the Cascade Range, and around 300,000 years or so ago, a giant landslide on the north side that still marks the surrounding terrain is considered one of the largest and most voluminous avalanches known on earth. Anyways, so much for the educational detour.

Shortly after passing Mount Shasta on the interstate, we turn off and head northeast toward the Oregon border on highway 97 but the volcano will dominate our view of the countryside for the remainder of the day. The geological marks of that eruption long ago are soon visible, and the country as we continue on looks like nothing I've ever seen before. It's wide open and barren except for sage brush which seems to be the only thing that thrives. Once they're up, check the pictures to visualize how much of this vast expanse in northeast California looks. As we approach the California-Oregon border, we pass the Butte Valley National Grassland. I didn't believe it either until I saw the sign as I sped past. The kids and I can't help but poke fun at the name, although Butte is actually pronounced like it rhymes with "newt" (hey, it's been a long day in the car, and this is too good to pass up...I mean, National Grassland, who'd have guessed?).

Now we're skirting along the southern edge of the California-Oregon border and we pass through a portion of the Klamath National Wildlife Refuge and then the nearby Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge. Think birds, lots of them. All kinds of migrating birds here, from the Bald Eagle to egrets to mallards. I always thought birds were interesting but ever since watching the movie The Big Year with Steve Martin, Jack Black and Owen Wilson, I have a new appreciation for birds and birding and think it might be something worth getting more into. Anyways, it's late afternoon now and we don't see many birds but we have a couple of days here.

We're anxious to get to find a place to eat dinner and get to our hotel. Since getting off the interstate a couple of hours ago the towns we've passed through have been mighty small and the dining options very limited. We hit our final destination, a tiny town on the Tule Lake called, appropriately, Tulelake. There's one restaurant called Captain Jack's Stronghold (more on the name later, on Day 6). Surprisingly, the place is good and the food is excellent (will have to write a review on yelp for this one as well). I'm still not sure how, but we wind up talking with an older couple in the booth next to ours and it turns out that they're working on maintaining and putting up markers for the Nobles Emigrant Trail which is a branch of the Oregon Trail that was founded as a shortcut running from Nevada into northern California. Based on research in hiking guides for Lassen Volcanic National Park, which is our next stop (so more on that to come, beginning Day 6), I've learned that the Nobles Trail runs through the park so the name is familiar. Arielle has been learning about westward expansion in school this past year (and was a big fan of Little House on the Prairie growing up) and we've been talking about gold rush over the past few days so this turns out to be an interesting conversation.

It's getting late by the time we finish our meal so we head to the hotel. It's the only one in town, located a few miles outside Lava Beds National Monument which is our next stop. After spending the last few nights in sleeping bags inside the tent, the family is looking forward to beds and pillows, television and internet. The room is nice but no television. The wireless isn't very strong in the room so anyone who wants to connect has to go outside where reception is a bit better or over to the main house of the lodge. There's a big recreation room with games, pool table and plenty of comfortable places to sit so it's a nice place to be...and the dining room for breakfast is here too.

It's been a long day, so off to bed.

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