Sorry but I have been locked out of our blog. I finally got in. This blog was written in May while we were in Trinity. We are in San Antonio, Texas on our way home. I will post blogs with pictures as time permits. I hope that you will enjoy the belated showings.
We had three days off in a row so we decided to visit Lassen NP. Lassen is not that far from Trinity but the mountain roads slow you down. Also there is only one way that is paved to get west to I-5 and Lassen . On rte. 299 there is construction. They are cutting into the mountain sides to get fill for places where severe bends had occurred. We were not held up too long, 10 minutes before being escorted through the construction sites. Some have had to wait up to 2 hours to get started. It takes almost 20 minutes to go the 3 or so miles. It will certainly improve travel time east/west when finished.
As you approach Redding, you pass by Whiskeytown Lake. Whiskeytown is another town , like Trinity Center, that was flooded when the lakes were formed. Redding is a fairly large city that has too much traffic for me. We did some shopping. I bought a smart phone at the Verizon store while Lou was getting help with hers. (I swore I would never get one but that is a story for a different blog.) It rained. We spent the night south of Redding in Red Bluff at a Best Western.
The drive to Lassen was about 60 miles through the brown parched California country. I guess some call it the Golden California. 
The rain had gone but low clouds were hanging around. They were predicted to lift by noon. They did not lift completely as our pictures will show.
These first shots show some of the views that we saw. The road through the park was twisty and hilly as most mountain roads are. Several places the road hung on the edge will a long drop to the creek below.
I enjoyed photographing the narrow creek beds as the water flowed down the mountain side. There were numerous like these.
This was a meadow where Lou spotted a couple of deer on the far side. We stopped and watched them quite a while. The one eating stopped eating and watched us cautiously for a while. When it appeared that the deer thought that we were not a threat, it returned to it’s lunch.
Another scenery shot. I once had a guy tell me he did like like Alaska. When asked why, he replied “There is nothing up there but scenery.”
There are a number of distinct geological features in the park. This is probably due to the presents of all four types of volcanoes found around the world. They are the cinder cones, composite volcanoes, shield volcanoes, and lava domes.
“Bumpass Hell is the largest concentration of hydrothermal features in the park. Bumpass Hell was named after an early settler who severly burned a leg after falling into a boiling pool. The hydrothermal features can be reached today from a well-marked 1.5 mile trail that starts from a parking area opposite Lake Helen. A visit to Lassen is not complete without a stop at Bumpass Hell.”
Our visit was not complete as we did not hike to Bumpass Hell. We did not have the necessary foot gear. You walked on snow pack 3 to 4 feet deep made slippery by many Hell visitors. Also the fog was so thick that you could not see more than 20 or 30 feet in front of you. We plan to return. (A later blog).
No trip can be enjoyed without lunch!
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