| Red rocks, heading into the mountains | At 580 feet long, this letter L (for “Lassen High School”) is apparently one of the largest hillside letters in the western US | Eagle Lake comes into view | Northeast end of Eagle Lake | Fire lookout on Schonchin Butte, at Lava Beds National Monument | Schonchin Butte, a cinder cone from an eruption about 30,000 years ago |
| Heading into Skull Cave | The others following behind | Skull Cave’s entrance | Flynn and Guinness lead the way | Even at the entrance, the temperature drops significantly | Almost to the bottom, time to warm those hands |
| This area of the cave is blocked to visitors. The floor is covered in a layer of ice. | The ice-covered floor is beyond the gate. The steel railings are freezing cold! | Innaias helps his Mommy down the steep staircase | A natural bridge near the bottom of the cave | The patterns of weathering on the rocks was very interesting | Panorama view from the visitor’s center |
| Collapsed lava tubes like this one were all over the place | Near the entrance of Big Painted Cave | Descending into Big Painted Cave | Pictograph | There were quite a bit more pictographs at the Symbol Bridge cave | Though admittedly, many of the pictographs looked like something a vandal might have drawn there today ☺ |
| I can only assume that the Park Service and scientific experts verify that the pictographs are authentic | Symbol Bridge is so-named because of the bridge of unbroken rock between two collapsed tubes. Here, you can see under the bridge to the other side. | Schonchin Butte, from the Symbol Bridge trail | We stayed at this old hunting lodge, just north of Lava Beds | This was the main common area in the lodge | The lodge caretakers have a very friendly dog |
| The kids had fun playing with her | Even Innaias got into the act | She had a good time with them | Early the next morning, this biplane cropduster was out working the fields near the lodge | Farmland just south of Klamath Falls | More farm scenery |
| We arrived in Eugene just in time to have lunch at the new Burrito Boy location near Valley River Mall | Posing in front of Autzen Stadium | Debra borrowed Flynn’s bike for an errand, and is now catching back up with us | Walking through Alton Baker Park to the inner planets | Before arriving at Earth, we passed by a very large group of cyclists in some sort of class, just visible in the background here | Back in Eugene, we dined again at Cafe Soriah |
