Hiking with Friends in Capitol State Forest

Leslie recommended a hike in the woods nearby for Tuesday's morning activity, so we gladly joined...

The trails are part of the Washington State system...

... in the Capitol State Forest. Our plan was to do about a mile loop around the ponds (lower left part of the map). It had an option of a shorter path by taking the straight path at the midpoint if we got tired early.

8 Bluebirders joined for the hike... 7 in one picture...

... One photographer for the group shot!

Our first view of the pond - plants on the pond...

Pretty flower in the area with the cattails on the edge...

A lot of the trail was on boardwalks which were in very good shape!

Another view of the pond...

The yellow thing in the middle down near the water is a flower...

There's another one - just under the water.

It was shady and cool on most of the path on the Pond Loop...

Lots of moss on trees.

Along a creek... backsides and...

front sides!

There were several very neat looking remnants of trees - many of them had younger trees growing up from the stumps of older trees.

The paths around the pond were wide and easy to walk.

We saw a Banana Slug (I think that's what others said it was)...

Kathie picked up the stick that it was on and it "made eyes" at her!

We met a "wild animal" along the path - well, a young bulldog. His owner was glad for the socialization skills that he got to practice with us...

.... a bit of too much of a close-up to the camera! But he was sweet!

Quiet and peaceful (except generally wherever our group was - not so quiet!)

Beautiful upperstory...

Lovely big trees...

Evergreens and deciduous...

Glorious creation of God!

We took a "connector" to another loop trail...

We had started on the "Pond Loop" on the lower left side, then took the connector (shown on the upper middle of the map) to the Forest Loop on the upper right side of the map.

The Forest Loop trail was not quite as wide as the Pond Loop was.

Toward the end of the Forest Loop we saw trees marked with "Timber Sale Boundary". The Forest Service is managing the health of the forest by allowing some timber sales.

We had a great time being outside and getting a good hike. It was much cooler today - for much of the hike long sleeves and jackets were comfortable. No need for air conditioning on the bus - a nice breeze kept it cool and comfortable!

On to Washington and a Bluebird Rally, and plans for August and September

We had noticed that there was a Bluebird Rally planned near Olympia, Washington, starting on July 30... we looked at the map and decided that we could make that drive when we checked out of the Thousand Trails campground near Bend on Monday, checked with the organizers to see if there was space for us, and decided that would be our next destination!

Mount Hood filled our windshield view for some of the drive...

... sometimes peeking over the trees...

...sometimes out of sight around a curve (and an "Extreme Fire Danger Use Caution" sign)...

... but then it would re-appear...

So beautiful!

 We drove up through Gresham, Oregon, got on I-84 west, then I-205 north out of Portland and into Washington, and up I-5 to near Olympia.

We've arrived at Evergreen Sportsmen's Club. Fellow Bluebirders Ray and Leslie (of the Quartzsite Prime Rib fame!) are hosting the rally here. We're looking forward to meeting some new folks and getting to know some of the other Bluebirders better.

So far, there are 7 buses here - 3 on the front row...

... and 4 on the back row.

It is a little warm here (mid 80s - not as warm as it was in the Bend area - Bend was in the 90s), but predicted to cool a little for the days we'll be here.

We also have some bookings for the next couple of weeks...

Link to Google Maps

We wanted to visit Victoria again - we visited there after our Alaska cruise in 2005. Since it requires a ferry to get there, and the fare for a bus is pretty high, we decided to leave Miss Doozie and the cats in a campground near Anacortes, and just take the Jeep over on the ferry through the San Juan Islands. That's planned for Monday-Tuesday, 8/6-7. Then we have reservations to stay at three Thousand Trails campgrounds across Washington state... ending up north of Spokane, WA. We are thinking that we may go from there into Canada - I would like to visit Lake Louise, and we need to "collect" the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba (Dwayne and I have been to Manitoba previously, but not with Miss Doozie, and neither of us have been to Alberta or Saskatchewan). We plan to visit friends in Geneseo, IL, near Cincinnati and Mount Gilead, OH. We also would like to "collect" the last of the 48 states, Michigan - but, as you see by the map, I don't have figured out exactly when that might occur!

Our reservation at the Newport/Little Diamond Thousand Trails (paired with a KOA) has us leaving on 8/20... so we have a little over a month to make it to our next reservation at a county park in Fairfax County, near Reston, VA, before dropping down into Virginia to see Regina and Kendra at the Dairy Show in the VA State Fair, attending a Vintage Birds Rally in Williamsburg, and staying on the farm in Virginia and getting a good dose of family!

Of course, all of these plans are subject to change at the drop of a hat! Or, when something else interesting or important comes up!

Saturday to the Big Obsidian Flow

On Friday evening, I went onto RVillage (http://www.rvillage.com/) because I was wondering where friends (Dean and Lynne) that we met last year at a Thousand Trails in Washington might be. I had not noticed that I had an email telling me that I had message on RVillage, but when I went onto the tool, I saw that I a message, and it was from Dean and Lynne! It turned out that they checked in on Friday afternoon to the same campground that we are in!

I told them that we planned to be around the bus over the weekend, except that we might go to the Newberry Volcanic National Monument. They responded and recommended that we visit Paulina Lake and the Big Obsidian Flow. When I looked at the National Monument information (https://www.fs.fed.us/visit/destination/newberry-national-volcanic-monument-0 https://www.fs.fed.us/r6/webmaps/7Wonders/#), although the part that I had thought we would visit was a little north of us, I saw that the monument covered a large area, and that Paulina Lake and the Big Obsidian Flow were actually inside the caldera of Newberry Volcano. The part to the north of us included Lava Butte which was accessible by a shuttle from the visitor center. We thought that Lava Butte and its views might be similar to the visit we made to Pilot Butte in Bend on Friday, so decided to forego that and take our friends' recommendation and head to the Paulina Lake area, a little south and east.

On the way up, we stopped at a scenic overlook...

From which we could see some of the mountains we had seen from Pilot Butte on Friday...

There was a good labeled picture of what we could see!

Then we drove on further to the Big Obsidian Flow. Dwayne has a large piece of obsidian (along with other rocks he has collected, stored in the container on the farm in Virginia) - so I knew he would enjoy seeing this!

Zoomed in on the descriptions on the plaque:

Dean and Lynne had warned us not to wear sandals. I normally keep a pair of closed shoes in the car if I am wearing  sandals on any given day away from the bus, "just in case", but it was definitely a good idea to have closed toe shoes on this hike. We saw a few people in flip-flops - definitely NOT a good idea!

The ending face of the flow to the west from the path.

There were a number of folks coming down when we got to the stairs, so we waited for a little bit...

.... then we started up to the hike on the Big Obsidian Flow!

Lost Lake was to the east at the ending point of the flow. I've done some looking online and cannot find information about what causes this lake - whether scientists surmise that there was a larger lake before the volcanic flow (and thus the lake was "lost") or it gets "lost" with water evaporation through the summer. One comment about a hike called "Lost Lake Hike" said that there are sulfur fumes when you are near it. I have also seen pictures on the web where it has more water (probably earlier in the year).

We have lots of pictures of obsidian...

...they are probably better if someone is in the picture...

... so you can get an idea of the immensity of this field of obsidian and pumice.

Mount Paulina

Paulina Lake in the distance...

This was at the highest point on the trail...

... lots of people were there taking pictures of each other with views in the background, so we joined in...

... it had really nice views.

Rocks and rocks and rocks...

Another view of Mt Paulina...

... and Dwayne with Mt Paulina.

I actually did not notice that we could see mountains beyond Paulina Lake while we were there - I'm guessing they are Mt Bachelor in the center, and one of the Three Sisters to the right.

Another view of the cracked rock that was up at the top.

Zoomed in on Paulina Lake and the two mountains.

As we were leaving that topmost area, I snapped this picture to show a layered rock with a guy about to walk beyond it on the path. you can see the path to the right center of the picture. It definitely wasn't flip-flop friendly!

We didn't see any frogs - maybe we were too early in the year?

Lichen

Maybe this is Penstemon?

Trees growing on the flow.

I found this to be fascinating!

And this was pretty interesting too!

A pile of obsidian

Coming back to Lost Lake at the end of the hike.

Can you see Dwayne in this picture? He is to the left of center, just under one of the trees that is reaching up above the horizon.

And a picture Dwayne took from me after I took the picture right above.

We drove to East Lake and Paulina Lake but only drove around the parking areas as they were packed. There were lots of folks enjoying the lakes on stand-up paddleboards, paddleboats, canoes or kayaks, tubes, and other floating objects. I think that there were motorboats on the lakes as well.

We enjoyed our Obsidian hike!