Lassen Volcanic National Park

Our highlight camping trip this year was definitely Lassen Volcanic National Park. None of us had ever been there before so it was all-new amazing-ness. (Or, as one of my dear friends recently called a place of similar beauty, "amaze balls.") It was a bit of a drive, which is no small thing these days: the kids and car rides is a toxic combination. They are confined and in close proximity so when the audiobooks or iPod sing-a-longs, or car bingo lose their appeal, it's madness. Sometimes it's the madness of them getting along and winding each other up to a maniacal-laughing frenzy and other times it's "I hate you" and "I'm going to punch you." But I digress.We broke the trip up to Lassen nicely by stopping in Chico at Sierra Nevada's tap room for lunch. For the trip home, however, after four days of camping and no showers, we felt we smelled too bad for anything besides Subway.I've always said that if I weren't a historian, I woulda liked to have been a Supreme Court justice. But, my third choice for a career woulda been as a geologist for sure. (Which, when you think about it, is another type of historian, no?) So the things to do and see at Lassen were a fascinating combination of nature, alive and inorganic. The park is home to all four types of volcanoes in the world. The park was well signed and had several interpretative, historical nature walks. I had no idea that Lassen erupted less than 100 years ago (May and June of 1915 to be exact)! And, as you'll see from some of the pictures, one of the hikes, Bumpass Hell, culminated in geological thermal thingys that bubbled and boiled and stunk like rotten eggs. In fact, before we move along to the pictures, I'll just add that Oliver hated that hike. The smell made him so upset. Luckily he had his bandana so we tied it around his face until we were able to hike out of that hellhole. But I think we scarred him.