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I set up the camcorder and just let it record. Excuse the quailty of the video. I just learn to cut clips out  in Sony Vegas. Wasn't too productive of a day today because of the heat I think.

We have a couple of volcanoes within eye shot of my area. To visit both in one day it's about a 150-200 mile trek. But there are a few points of interest along the way I discovered a while back. We took a camera and the camcorder. Since I still can't figure out Sony Vegas yet, I decided to pull out a few snapshots off the tape.

We travelled south on I5 from the City of Shasta Lake to Hwy 44 east down I-5  to Redding. Travelling east, we encountered a detour and had to travel even farther south almost to Anderson before we could cut back up to 44 just outside of Shingletown. From there it is a nice drive through the trees all the way to the intersection of 44 and Hwy 89.

The intersection is also where the entrance to Lassen National Park is. The road closes in the winter months due to snow and isn't opened again until around Memorial Day. Just north of the park is where our adventure begins....

Subway Caves

The Subway Caves were created by lava flow from one of the Mt. lassen eruptions. I believe the last eruption was around 1916 or 15.

 

 

 

The entrance to the cave is just a few hundred yards from the parking area. They have some pretty nice stairs to take you down in

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is our first view of the cave. This is where we checked the flashlights to make sure they were working. Most of the cave is pretty much like this except for one cave-in about 3/4 of the way through. Unfortunately, even though my camcorder does fairly well in dim light...flashlight doesn't cut it. I even had my small light going on the camera but most of the shots through the cave are totally black.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These are the exit stairs and our first view of the way out. It had been maybe 30 years since I had been here and had much different memories of the experience. I think it took all of 15 minutes to get through from end to end.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the right side of the exit of the cave. The formations of the rocks were more interesting in person. It's truely difficult to capture the moment in poor light with a camera you are just learning to use.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Search for Extraterrestrial Inteligence

The University of California maintains an array of radio telescopes used by S.E.T.I for listing to our neighbors. Unfortunately the site is closed on the weekend. It is located about 10 miles south of the intersection of Hwy 299 and Hwy 89 and off the road east about a mile.

 

 

 

 

Here's a view of Mt Lassen from where we are parked. You really can't ask for much more. It was a little windy but heh! We were at around 4000 feet here so it's supposed to be windy right?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you look real close you can see the array for satellite dishes. They are the white things in the center of the picture. Someday I'll get to see them up close and get a better picture. As I understand it, they are develepong a new type of array for the S.E.T.I program but can't remember the details.

 

 

Of course here's a picture of the Jeep and the small lake behind the Jeep where we parked to see the array. Not sure if there are any fish in there or not but it looks promising if you could get a boat in there.

MacArthur-Burney Falls State Park

Our adventure continues at Burney Falls which is 6 miles north of the intersection of Hwy 299 and Hwy 89 (on 89). It's time for lunch!

 

After paying our six bucks to get the car in, we proceeded through the park to the lake. They have a really nice picnic area, boat ramp etc. Nice place to relax and stuff your face. I didn't take to much time taking pictures of the lake. We were there for other reasons....

Burney Falls

 

 

The temperature is about 10-15 degrees cooler at the base of the falls then the top of the falls. If you look close at some of the pictures you can see water coming out of the rock. Because of the volcanic activity in the area, the face of the falls is actually porous. During certain times of the year the water coming down the stream dries up and the water goes underground. The underground water shoots out the face of the falls and keeps this spectacular beauty alive.

You will notice that one of the shots are from the far side of the falls. They have a 1.5 mile loop trail to take you back to the parking lot. The last picture in the group is the creek above the falls. Below you can see some of the statistics of the falls and an interesting tree section. The entire section has plaques of all the major events since it first sprouted.

 

 

McCloud Falls

The McCloud Falls are also located off of Hwy 89 about 5 miles south of the town of McCloud. There are actually 3 falls the make up the McCloud Falls...Upper, Middle, and Lower falls. The roads back into them have improved over the last few years and so has the general access.

 

 

This is the Swimming Hole above the Upper falls. Kind of out of the way but a really nice spot. The kids have fun. I'm not sure if they are locals or tourists. McCloud is one of those towns that if you see more than 10 people in one spot there is a BIG doins go on.

The Upper Falls

The Middle Falls

 

The Lower Falls

From here we went on a drive through of McCloud to see some of the old buildings and then on to the city of Mt Shasta.

Mt Shasta

Was checking out the telephoto lens and the optical zoom on the camera for these shots.

 

These are taken from the downtown area of Mt. Shasta. Geographically you are looking at the Southwest side of a 14,000+ foot volcano. Crazy place to build a city but oh well. I guess its not much different than building a house on a cliff at the beach and not taking the erosion factor in to consideration. Both Lassen and Shasta are listed as active volcanoes. We are 50 miles from each of them so rather safe from all but the ash if the wind blows right.

 

There is one last detail to mention about the trip...we visited the headwaters of the Sacramento River before we headed home down I-5. There is a spot where it is less than 3 feet wide where we went right in the city outskirts. I understand that the river spews out of a rock at the very beginning of it but well save that for yet another adventure.

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Got out last night after work and puttered in the garden area. Pulled some weeds and moved a little dirt around. Not that I did a lot but it was about 90+ degrees out. My real goal is to finish the fence along the side of the house this year. Seems to be many other things that grab my attention though. The main thing is I already have the materials, so the only real excuse is that it's too hot.

The good thing though is now that I leveled the dirt in one area, I can sort of envision how it will look after the grass grows in. I'm thinking I'll need another yard of loam/soil conditioner mix and I'll be done in the front 2/3 preparing the soil.

I'm thinking about a sprinkler system also which I really know nothing about as far as designing. But I'm thinking it should go in before the grass right? My neighbor actually has some experience in that area and has a trencher so it should be easier than I'm imagining at the moment. I just need to get the underground pipeline guy to come out and mark the water, gas, and sewer lines so he knows where not to dig.

As far as being perfect when I'm all done....I think I'll leave perfection to GOD. He's good at that.

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When I was living in Redding, my most immediate neighbors were both named Mike. Besides becoming friends, we became fishing buddies and went fishing together on several occations. One day I was joking around and came up with the following rules:

 

The Rules of Mike

 

1. Mike always catches the first fish.

2. Mike always catches the last fish.

3. Mike always catches the biggest fish.

4. Mike always catches the most fish.

5. Mike always has fun!

 

As sometimes in all reality Mike couldn't catch shit if his life depended on it, Rule 5 is definately the most important rule. It is the only rule meant to never be broken as it only takes catching 1 fish to satisfy the other rules.

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This woke me up the other morning in the middle of the night. We were having some fairly good winds and the neighbors tree decideded to part with one of its limbs, Fortunately, there wasn't all that much damage considering what it could have done.....MISSED THE BOAT!

 

 

It knocked over my archway I bought and painted but never set it up in it's final destination. The damage is easily repairable or can be hidden with some more paint.

 

Time to break out the chainsaw again.

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Been busy the last few weekends being creative. This fence is where the driveway use to be. It's not done yet. I still need to trim the posts and put 2x6's across the the tops of the panels and do a little more on the gate.

 

We hauled in a couple yards of soil and spread it out in this area behind the fence this weekend. Then I cut in our new walkway area. I still don't have a complete vision of what it is supposed to look like when it's all done but how can i go wrong? Anything will beat 4" of gravel with weeds growing through the middle.

 

My work is definately cut out for me. Maybe by the spring i'll be ready for lawn? Still haven't figered out the sprinkler system yet either. Of course I'm not admitting that I know what I'm doing either.

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Never underestimate the ingenuity of man....and his sese of humor. The MacAquarium plans are still available but If you must have one of these IWipes instead, you can get the details here. http://content.techrepublic.com.com/2346-10878_11-5597-1.html

 

Where the guy got the idea for this is beyond me.

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Needless to say I had a good day at the lake today. Ran out of worms or there might have been a few more. What you see here are 4 silver salmon and a decent bass. All of them put up a great fight! Not sure why I was the only one catching anything but I know I was excited. I even had to throw a couple small bass back. The new fishfinder worked pretty good. Was able to read the display even in bright sunlight. Not that it helped catch the fish, but I was able to tell what depth they seemed to be running at. The secret is the bait....Night Crawlers.

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