It’s 3pm and we are enjoying a little snack under a big Juniper tree at Lava Beds National Monument. I think we got the best campsite (D27)–lots of shade and there is a nice breeze.
This place is way the hell out in nowhere. In fact we were shocked to see anyone else here although there aren’t a lot of other people. It is much warmer–about 80 degrees. And lots of flies!!!!! (I am sorry to find out later that they are biting flies!) But Diana is fully screened and we have these mosquito repellent devices (ThermaCell) that seem to keep most of the flies away from us too.
On our way here from Lassen we drove through a huge area that was devastated by wildfire. We suspect it was the most recent fire that was in the news so much a month or so ago. We did see in-tact homes in the midst of devastation. We did not see any partially burned structures; I hope there were none. It truly was a horrible sight. After that we drove through lots of farmland interspersed with high hills of evergreen trees. We occasionally saw other areas hit by fires.
We really had no idea what to expect of Lava Beds NM but there is a lot more here than we ever could have expected. There are over 700 caves that were formed by lava flows 10,500 to 65,000 years ago. We will probably only explore the caves rated “least challenging.” The ranger recommended 4 caves that are within 3 miles of the visitor center. The length of those caves ranges from 580 ft. to 3,280 ft. The longest one is highly developed (paved path and high ceilings) so it will not be as difficult as it sounds. It should be easy to do the “one at a time” exploration (one of us stays with the dogs while the other explores). We plan to be here 4 nights so there will be plenty of time to see the sites.
There are 14 species of bats that live and nest here. The visitor’s center screens and educates guests about white-nose syndrome. That is a disease killing bats across the world in large numbers. To think of a world without bats makes me start to itch–bats eat an incredible amount of insects including mosquitoes. The rangers ask you what other caves you’ve been in including caves in Europe. And then they want to make sure that you will not be wearing gear into these caves that you wore in other caves.
We stopped at a cute little town for provisions. The name of the town was Burney–we thought that was not a very good name in wildfire country! I found some great looking lamb chops so that’s our dinner tonight. We’ll also use up some leftover lentils in a salad with feta and cherry tomatoes.