Lassen Volcanic Park

As we drove through the beginning of the park we drove past thermal vents where sulfuric steam was seeping out of the sides of the mountains in a cloud of smoke. It smelled, as you would expect a sulfur thermal vent to smell – like rotten eggs. We had to drive once again up and back down a mountain. We would have only had to do this once had I not left our $80 national park entrance pass at the pay station. The good news is we were able to drive past the series of thermal vents twice more. Where the steam was escaping from the mountainside the rock was a variety of colors and the whole scene was cool. The mountains in the distance along with the fir trees and the nearby lake looked like a Bob Ross painting, a little hazy and simply pretty with happy trees. The moon was the perfect sliver of a moon against a sky not quite dark. We tried to take a picture of this moment but it came out underexposed, so you will just have to imagine it and I will try not to forget it so I can keep that image.
We have become super speedy camp set-er-upers. We are like professionals at this now. We had everything set up and all the smelly things and food in the bear box and dinner cooking in no time. This may have been a record for us and once we sat down we were both impressed with our work.
We explored the Devastated Area, which is named this due to the boulders and tons of rocks that are displaced here from the volcanic activity that gives the park its name. In May of 1915 this volcano erupted twice and sent newly created rock as well as ancient volcanic rock flying into the air. The subsequent mudslide etc. caused the rock to be displaced even further from their points of origin and now there are fields with random volcanic rock boulders. There are some famous hot rocks, named this because at first they were warm to the touch that are as big as an old cabin. We were able to hike up to get a good view of one of these hot rocks with the volcano in the distance. Just seeing volcanic rocks not yet 100 years old as well as ancient volcanic rocks was really neat. Learning the history behind this area and all of the neat places we have seen is one of the best parts of our trip. Eating Ramen on the other hand has not been the best part of the trip and it is only a recent development. Ramen is not bad, but when you eat it more than one day in a row it is not good either.