Start of our Week of Thanks

We really maximized our Thanksgiving travels this year--starting off with a quick overnight stop with friends! They're always so gracious offering us a place to stay as we drive down to San Diego, but it's been a few years since we were able to take them up on the offer.

And staying overnight meant we got to enjoy a slow morning together--with good breakfast, a walk around their neighborhood, and then lots of outdoor play time.

The older boys worked on their golf swings while B gardened and S and I talked on the porch. It was such a fun start to our week. There's just something special about people who have known you since before you were grown up and seen you at some of your worst, but still like you, haha. I'm grateful that I still have a few close friends from middle school and even earlier.

And then, we drove down to San Diego to catch Bean's late afternoon water polo game. Traffic was horrendous (there was an officer involved shooting that had closed the freeway down for hours earlier in the day and it was STILL a mess), so the whole thing took almost as long as the drive the day before from home to north LA. But we eneded up with a few minutes to stop for the sunset on our way down.

It was too pretty to pass up.

And then we got to watch our girlie do her thing.

It's fun that they have a tournament the weekend before Thanksgiving, so the couple of years that we've spent the week in Oceanside, we've been able to come see her play. They didn't win, but it was a good game and it's still just fun to see her in the pool after all these years.

She had two more games the next day so after church in one of the single's congregations that she attends, we went back to the pool. 

They beat UW 17-5 (which she rubbed in Bug's face when she talked to him later) and Bean scored a beautiful corner shot.

We had time to grab lunch and take a walk around UCSD before she had to warm up for game two. 

And then the rest of us went down to La Jolla Shores to catch sunset #2. Colors weren't quite as deep, but it was still so beautiful.

We hung out for awhile,

while Daddy-o got into a deep discussion with an old friend.

And then it was time to go watch one more water polo game where they lost to UCSD in overtime, but played such a good game. After her game, we said goodbye for a couple days. Bean still had classes until Tuesday afternoon, and we were finally ready to meet up with our friends in Oceanside.

College Kid Adventure Trip

Bug and I got away for a few days of hiking and exploring together. I have decided that this is a tradition I want to continue with my college kids when they get home after their first year. I hope there will be more trips in the future, but it's really fun to have a few days to spend with just them and making some memories. And especially with Bug since he'll be leaving us for 2 years in just a few weeks to serve a mission for church.

We had a great trip planned to the eastern Sierras with some cool hikes, hot springs, a historical site--it was going to be awesome. And then fire season started and there is currently a fire just pouring smoke into that part of the state, so we had to make a last second switch and headed toward Lassen National Park instead. First day was spent in the Lassen National Forest outside of the park. We did a beautiful hike along the Lower Deer Creek to kick things off.

Found several banana slugs,

and a few newts! I love these guys--they were so cute when we accidentally startled them (but luckily saw them before we stepped on them!)

We soaked our feet in the creek for a few minutes--which felt especially good for Bug since he got stung by a yellow jacket on the hike out. I noticed a piece of honeycomb on the trail and had just said, "Hey, there must have been a beehive around here," when I caught the rest of the nest out of the corner of my eye. Definitely saw movement so I started running. Bug tried to follow, but wasn't quite fast enough, probably because when I walked by, I agitated them. It made it a little less fun hiking back because I knew we had to pass the same spot, but we both made it by unscathed. We waited a couple minutes between us so they had time to settle down again. And you better believe I ran when I found the place.

Yellow jackets aside, it was a really pretty forest. Made for a nice first hike.

And then we drove on just a little farther to a spot just outside of the national park to park for the night. It's kind of awesome that we have so many national forests and BLM land that offer free camping. And it only makes me a little nervous to pull into the forest at night to camp completely isolated from any other people, haha. I am much happier in the morning when we wake up and it's light. Probably would enjoy it more if we got in before dark at night, but it seems like we're always pushing daylight. We got a late start as we tried to take care of things at home before we left, so it was the same story this trip.

But it was a great spot and we had it all to ourselves--really convenient to the southwest entrance and after making breakfast the next morning, we drove the 15 minutes into Lassen NP.

Lassen was gorgeous. I've only seen it when it was mostly closed due to snow and we could barely see the ground, or explore the park, so this was so fun. We stopped at a lot of the highlights along the road through the park, like Emerald Lake.

And then we went to the main attraction: Bumpass Hell. And it really was like being in a different world once we hit the hydrothermal area.

The steam coming off of these acidic boiling hot pools is unreal. And some of them are boiling violently (probably combined with a lot of gas coming out, too--it looks crazy!)

Even just the gray creeks are so eerie.

It was a beautiful day and made for a really fun hike.

It's like another world.

And then our next hike looked much more normal 

and led us to a couple of beautiful lakes. First was Terrace Lake, 

where we spent awhile watching the tadpoles, including this guy who already had legs.

And then we went a little farther to see Shadow Lake.

Back on the highway, we passed this gorgeous meadow, and realized after we stopped here for a photo, there was a much better spot on the other end of it. 

We came back to grab a photo while the lighting was so good, which was a little bit of a feat since the turn radius on the big van isn't as tight as I'm used to with the minivan, but we made it safely back and then did another turn to get us back to where we were supposed to be.

And that was the hike to Kings Creek Falls. That area was hit by the Dixie fire in 2021 and looks pretty devastated.

The 30-foot falls are pretty,

but look nothing like most of the pictures which show lush forest all around the falls. It's almost completely dead in that area now.

There's a one-way short cut going back up along the creek which was pretty,

and really steep.

And then you make it back up to where the fire didn't take everything out.

We had a couple more hikes/areas that we wanted to do, but ended up with just enough daylight to see the Devasted area where they have sign boards explaining all about the last eruptions which happened in 1915 and took out this area.

Mt Lassen is there in the background, kind of crazy how the big rocks in this area were spewed from that volcano which seems kind of far away here.

It was cool to see the remains of the event.

And then we headed out of the park to find somewhere to camp for the night and to figure out what we were going to do the next day. Even though it ended up being a last minute planned trip, we quickly ended up with too many options to fit into the days that we had. Pretty much always a problem for us--neither Bug or I like missing out on anything we hear about that sounds cool, and most things sound cool, haha.

 

Another CA National Park!

We got to visit one of the most unique national parks and one of our last ones in California: Channel Islands NP! A visit to this park involves a 1+ hour long ferry ride from Ventura, which kicked off the adventure right away.

On the way over, we saw so many schools of dolphins.

They were beautiful! Playing in the surf, following the boat, diving under the bow. We probably saw two or three HUNDRED dolphins that day!

And then, we finally approached Scorpion Cove. The ferry drops you and all your gear at the pier and then it's about 1 mile to the group campground where we were camping for a couple of nights.

Scorpion Canyon has some trees, so we had shade in the campground, unlike most of the surrounding hills on that part of the island.

They aren't native trees, but we appreciated them anyway. Seems like the early settlers LOVED eucalyptus--it's everywhere in CA.

Once we set up our tents, we walked back down to the beach to explore.

Found a cool limpet type I don't think I've seen before.

There are kelp beds all around the pier which make for good snorkeling. We had also rented kayaks so our group took turns snorkeling, kayaking, and hanging out on the beach.

That evening, we went for a hike up one of the bluffs to get to where we could see the sunset.

There were beautiful views everywhere we looked.

Brothers.

This was a fun group to camp with--4 families (or parts of families--not everyone wanted to do some rustic camping.)

We waited around to watch the sun

and the kids made some of us parents really nervous as they played too close to the cliffs for our comfort.

What a great day--and we still had two more!

I got up the next morning and did more exploring of the cliffs and the views.

It was a beautiful morning.

I hiked farther along the coastal bluffs than we had the night before.

And made it to Potato Harbor.

There are so many sea caves along the coast here--more than anywhere else in the world, apparently. We had gone in some the day before, and some people went out early that morning, too.

Back at camp for breakfast! The group sites are pretty basic, but they have three picnic tables and plenty of space to set up many tents.

After breakfast, we went back over to the beach--and saw one of many island foxes on the way! They are so sweet and so not scared of people.

Spent the morning taking turns on the kayaks and with the snorkel gear.

After lunch, a group of us hiked back up to Potato Harbor where I had been in the morning.

Beautiful coastline.

And then, the kids went back out for another sunset hike. I decided that three times up the hill was too much for me (I'd already done over 10 miles of hiking that day.)

The kids took some pictures with my phone up there.

Bean was having fun.

Sunset #2.

They ended up staying up there quite awhile and hiked back in the dark.

It was fun doing this adventure with friends.

And on the third morning I hiked in a different direction--up Scorpion Canyon to bird watch.

It was a really foggy morning, which made for beautiful cobwebs.

So misty that morning.

Along with birds, I found some flowers, too.

The island paintbrush is one of the endemic species on the island.

After we cleaned up camp, we had a few hours left to spend exploring.

Some people hiked, most people went out on the water.

It was fun having kayaks right there, ready to go. We went in more sea caves and looked for Garibaldi and sea stars near the rocks and shoreline. The water was clearer this last day and made it easy to see things, even from up in the kayak.

Such a fun trip!

And we really enjoyed hanging out with this group.

And then, it was time to go. The kayaks we'd rented on the mainland were loaded back on the ferry,

and we said goodbye to the kelp forest.

We had another long ride back.

And not as many dolphins as on the ride out, but we did run into a couple of schools and one of them were feeding--it was fun to see the feeding frenzy.