Weekend Excursion

Rick's older brother Steve and his family came to visit for a long weekend so we finally were able to make it out to the Lava Beds!  

 It's about a half hour drive from the house, but it's been so cold we haven't been able to go, but we couldn't have asked for better weather this weekend and had the sunburns to prove it.

 It is 100's of caves that were made by cooled lava and 25 of them are developed for people to tour with flashlights/lanterns.  We were there most of the day and only made it to 5 of them and can't wait to go back to try the remaining ones.

 This was Merill Cave, one of our favorites, even though it required climbing down a couple flight of stairs via a ladder through a hole that you couldn't see what was in it since it was too dark.  Rick and Ashlyn were the first brave ones to venture down as I held the flashlight for them to be able to see where to put their feet...Ashlyn's bravery ended about half way down when she started crying.  It was neat when we got down there.  I guess back in the day they use to have ice in it that they ice skated on.  The kids were disappointed when it wasn't there anymore...obviously the Christmas Eve ice skating experience this year didn't traumatize them too badly!

 There were lots of cool Juniper trees that the cousins had fun climbing during our picnic lunch.

 Blake and his cousin Emily, who is only a month younger than him, were a little more adventurous than us TALLER adults and liked going deeper in the caves than we did.  We didn't mind the places that required duck walking (we are Oregon fans) but crawling on our hands and knees was more than we were willing to do.  So angrily Blake and Emily had to stop and turn around before some of the ends of the caves.

                                        

Some of the caves had openings above that was funny when people walked by on the trail and would peek their heads in on us.  The holes definitely made it easier to see down in the caves that had them. 

 With Rick's bum knee he's had for a couple of weeks and my broken toes from last week, Uncle Steve was nice and explored some of the more uneven terrain with Blake...Blake was in heaven!

We had a great time Steve, Lisa, Emily and Julie, thanks for coming!  We can't wait to explore more of the caves this summer...even though it'll have to be without ya'll.