September 12 -- The Road Trip Begins

Today we drove several hours to leave California, cross Oregon entirely and reached Vancouver, Washington.  After leaving home at 6:30 AM, we pulled into our Hilton hotel at 5:30 PM.

Highlights of our trip included:

1.  Shasta Lake.  This is one of California’s two largest reservoirs and a destination for boating enthusiasts as well.  Interstate Highway 5 took us over the reservoir and gave us a few nice views.  The water looked pretty blue, but the reservoir was not full.  That might just be a reflection of this time of year, not an indication of drought.

2.  Next we saw a rock formation called Castle Crag, which is also a California State Park.  My photo is not so great, but here it is:

3.  Then we began to see Mount Shasta, a giant volcano, peaking out over the trees.
We learned last week that our volcanoes in the Pacafic Northwest are not well monitored (as they are in Japan), so even though we have the technical capability to know when they will erupt, we haven’t installed the equipment to do so.  Apparently there is a dispute between the forest service and the seismological groups.

4.  We approached Mount Shasta and got better views up close.  Plus, we could see an adjacent unusual mountain.  Is his the Black Butte?

6.  After this we admired a view in a pleasant valley north of Mount Shasta, which then took us paver some mountains to Oregon.

7.  The last photo worthy site was a Table Rock north of Medford, Oregon, a lava formation that has been created by the erosion surrounding it.  The drive through Oregon was very pleasant as well, and it was nice to see areas that were green.

Unfortunately, our driving experience ended with bumper to bumper traffic to cross Portland, but no worries, we made it.