Camper fun!

We love our trailer!!!

dispersed camping rocks!!! 

another great spot

so cozy!!!

she did the dishes!

Rob does the hard stuff, thank you Rob!!

and it's finally LEVEL!!

another great spot, lake view :-)

Lovely Lakes!

There's still plenty of water in CA!! We've been indulging in lots of beautiful pristine waters up here!

Butte Lake is surrounded on one side by a lava field!

North Fork Feather River

Juniper Lake

Summit Lake

Some camp food highlights :-)

Vietnamese Fresh Spring Rolls

Rob makes breakfast and we drink fresh ground french press coffee! Rob hooked the grinder up to the car battery!

Steak, fresh corn, brussel sprouts in mustard sauce and gluten bread!

Climbing Volcanoes!

Lassen Volcanic National Park is full of volcanoes &  we've been climbing them!

Mt. Lassen - last erupted 1915!

Mt. Harkness now has a fire lookout on top

Cinder Cone!!

Going to Lassen

Yesterday we all woke up a little earlier than normal out of excitement. We packed up our little trailer and filled up the truck. We left around ten. We drove the whole day through different ghost towns and desserts until we reached the mammoth lakes area. Mom had already had a campground picked out that was free to stay at. We soon realized why. We drove down a one way ten foot wide gravely, dusty road for about a half an hour with our trailer flopping and bumping behind us. We finally reached the campground named deadman creek. We drove around to find a campsite long enough for us. We drove what we thought was a loop until we found it was a dead end with a sign saying "warning! Deep sand! Back up!" As you could probably expect, me and mom were panicking. My dad was cool though and we backed out. We found a site and parked. We emptied ourselves if you know what I mean, than walked around. We found a nice little creek with ten inch blackish green fish. The lava rocks weighed literally nothing. A baseball sized rock weighed as much as a pebble, and the pebbles weighed as much as a twig. We had meat mixture for dinner and conked out. According to mom, I did some verbal drama in my sleep. We woke up around eight and ate an awesome (in my opinion) breakfast with nutella on toast and hot cocoa. We packed up again and left again around ten. Now we are on the road again for another day of driving.

on the road to LVNP

On our way to Lassen Volcanic National park!

Amanda was 5 last time we were there. We're excited to climb volcanoes and kayak lovely lakes. It's about 12 hours from home, so the first night we found camping near Mammoth in an unmaintained forest service campground where camping is free. Google maps took us through some crazy dirt roads to get there and good thing our driver Rob is both capable and intrepid to navigate us there with our trailer!

Anyway, it's great to get away, see some trees, and creeks (yes, there is still water flowing in CA!!) we've even seen some patches of snow and glacier on the highest peaks.

We will have limited connection to technology while on this trip, which will be great for all of us, maybe especially Rob since he works from home and knows what's going on at work 24/7.

I'm grateful for this time to bond with Rob and Amanda and take a break before coming back and diving into work, school and theater again, also for Dane, who offered to take care of all the animals so he could "keep up his bond with them". :-)  I just love these people in my family!

Yesterday, Rob and I were having so much fun listening to Rhapsody and going back into the history of rock and roll....Fleetwood Mac, the Stones, Velvet Underground, and more.....tyring to impress Amanda with how the old rock influences the stuff of today....she complained about it. How can she not appreciate that history lesson and also how cool we are?!?

Gorgeous drive today:

Yosemite falls view from driving into the national park

Yosemite falls. It was so pretty! All thatv water going down!

Were almost there!

On our way to Yosemite on Yosemite highway!

Trailer Life poem

I sleep in a bunk bed,
And and I comb a bed head.

I eat cinnamon raisin bread,
And we Play Uno... I've got a red!
Away we go we said,

And we wait for what lies ahead.

A day at the zoo rehab center

Today was awesome. Me and my family woke up early and started out towards the big red caboose with big yellow letters on top that said: "ZOO" and had a big yellow fox painted on the caboose itself. We walked over to a bench that said: "rest your bones" and sat down. We waited. And waited. Then finally, a lady walked over to us. Finally. We walked over to a small building and met a man named William cutting breakfast for the whole ZOO. First we watched a elderly lady named Hellen feed a white albino raccoon named Marshmallow and then followed her to a cute coyote named Wile E. and she acted just like a dog. But 1 difference. She urinated right next to her bowl.  Next we walked to the handmade prarie dog enclosure and wached as the feeders walked into the enclosure and put the fresh veggies by each hole. We also saw a cage in the middle of the enclosure with a new little prarie pup inside. They fed him too. We where led towards a large round cage and saw the BIGGEST black bear I had ever seen. Geez he was BIG!!! We coaxed him into an airlock and me, mom, and dad had a chance to feed him a milkbone dipped in peanut butter through the metal of a chainlink fence.  He started to lick the fence of all the access peanut butter. Yummy yum. Then we and the feeders went into the enclosure once the bear was shut in the airlock and put berries, spinach, a catfish, and some melons in a large pile by the glass. We got out and let the bear out into the enclosure and me and it had a race on both sides of the fence but he just lumbered along behind me. 

Then we where off to the elk. A big guy he was. He had a shy little girlfriend that we could hardly see. We wached with narrowed eyes becouse of the narly wind as one of the feeders dumped hay onto a concrete slab which seemed to be his walk on (not in) breakfast table. He was like,  "Oohs and aahs, look how handsome I am! " With the way he acted. We saw some Mule deer and changed their water.

Then we went to the endangered Mexican grey wolves and saw those playful little guys scampering around, bouncing with every single step. "Ba boing! Ba boing! "

Then we went to the Javelinas. If you may be wondering what the heck are Javelinas, picture a pig.
=O Fun fact:
--------------------------
Javelinas are in no way related to a pig.
We went inside the enclosure  once the Javelinas were safely locked up in the airlock and scattered their food around the walled in enclosure and had a great time doing it. Fling-bonk! Fling-bonk!

Now it was time to feed the deer. Old mama, the first deer we saw, was not very friendly and backed away as we passed her. But the two other deer named Verbena and Velcro, were friendly as can be. Velcro was the friendliest and she wanted to be petted.

Next we went to a raccoon like animal called a Coatimundi. His name is Spencer and he had to have special stuff put into his food because he has seizures once and awhile. He was cute.

We went to the bobcats next and saw the feeders clean their litter box and feed them.

Then we came to the mountain lions. There was two. MoonShine and another. When they were safely inside of the airlock, I got to put Moonshine's food in her food dish. Then I came up to Moonshine and I put my hand up to the fence and she licked me. She licked me. Moonshine the mountain lion, I mean, not many kids get licked by a mountain lion.

Then we went to Barbie the baby porcupine and I went into the enclosure and got her food dish and put her food inside.

Then we went to Karaoke the coyote and fed her too. You are probably wondering why a coyote is named Karaoke. It is because she loves to sing her howl. Karaoke howling.... sounds fun!

Ok, so we are done with the feeding. We said goodbye to everyone and walk off. But if you think we were just going to walk away without seeing any more animals, you are mistaken.

We then saw the birds. We saw a Barn Owl, a Paragon falcon that hated dad and some others, too.

Then we went in the caboose I first talked about and saw a pretty landscape painted inside. Today was the most amazing day on our entire trip and still is.