Author: Lisa
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Lassen Volcanic National Park – Day 3
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King’s Creek was our destination for hiking today. Parasitic Beauty Along the drive, I finally saw a place to pull over so I could get pictures of a really cool plant that I saw yesterday growing along the park road. The Snow Plant is bright red and is found in conifer forests like this one.…
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Lassen Volcanic National Park – Day 2
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For our first full day in the park, we wanted to drive the scenic road from our campground to the visitor center at the other end with hikes and stops in between. Lassen Peak Hike Our first stop/hike was up Lassen Peak, which is correctly labeled strenuous. There are areas of snow where some kind…
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Lassen Volcanic National Park – Day 1
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Traveling from Iowa to California was not scheduled day-to-day so we could decide when to stop as we felt we needed to. But once we reached California, I had each day planned out (except for two) because summer campgrounds fill up when families get to take vacations. We happened to make the trek across Nevada…
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Historic Wendover Airfield Beyond the Salt Flats
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This Harvest Host site in Utah we are staying at tonight is steeped in WWII history. The airfield was opened in 1940 with a few buildings and bombing and gunnery ranges for training. This quickly grew to several hundred buildings after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The B-17 and the B-24 heavy bombardment groups were…
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Green River, WY
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Our drive today across Wyoming was uneventful. We are always amazed at the scenery along I-80, with abrupt changes from prairie to mountain, then back to some farmland, then more mountains. We stopped at the Sherman Summit rest stop at the highest point of the entire I-80 route at 8,640 feet. There is a massive…
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Strataca: Kansas Underground Salt Mine
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My friend, Martie, has been suggesting a visit to this place for years. When I saw them on the Harvest Host map, I knew it was time to stop, do a tour, then spend the night in their parking lot. The Strataca Museum is located 650 feet below the city of Hutchinson, Kansas. This is…
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Petrified Forest National Park
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As a kid, my family visited the Petrified Forest National Park. I remember seeing the “logs” laying on the ground in pieces, and that differed from the vertical tree trunks I had imagined. I also recall buying a piece of petrified wood in a gift shop, and now wonder what happened to it. Most of…
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Meteor Crater
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Today we saw a different type of crater than yesterday’s Sunset Crater. The Meteor Crater is not volcanic, though that wasn’t proven until 1960. Meteor Crater science is relatively young. With the snow-covered San Francisco Peaks still visible in the west, people thought logically that this crater must also be part of a volcanic field.…
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Sunset Crater National Monument
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Sunset Crater is the remains of a cinder cone volcano that erupted over 900 years ago. Every “mountain” in this area is really a volcano. This type of volcano typically erupts once and the cinders and ash pile up around the vent to form the cone. Sunset Crater was a primary vent among smaller ones,…
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Walnut Canyon National Monument
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Walnut Canyon is home to cliff dwellings along the canyon walls and pit houses along the rim that were built by one clan of ancestral people to the Hopi tribe. This canyon was occupied from 1125 to 1250, at which point the people moved away and assimilated into Hopi culture. The Hopi have migration stories…