Oregon & Washington

Mt Saint Helen's Volcano Early Autumn Colors, WA
& Mud Flow Path, WA


Oregon Aquarium - Otters & Puffins


Oregon Coast - Miles & Miles of Beautiful Shoreline

Crater Lake & McKenzie Pass, OR

This is what's left of a volcanic eruption. The water in Crater Lake is 1943' deep and the cliffs are nearly 2,000 feet tall. It's the deepest lake in the US and ranks 7th in the world.

Look at those colors !! There were many of these clefts in the rock face we passed. We could hear a small waterfall far below this cliff, but the photos were too distant to see it well.

The Dee Wright Observatory is a stone memorial located in the middle of a massive lava flow and offers panoramic views of the Cascade Mountain Range, as far north as Mt. Hood. Each of the openings in the outer wall points to a different mountain in the distance. There are plaques next to the openings that name the mountains. Awesome !! On top is a large brass circular plate with compass points and the names of all the mountains within view (there were about 10 of them). This is 5,325 feet in elevation and all that black stuff, along with the walls of the observatory is lava rock !! The ground is covered in this rock for miles around.

Burney Falls, CA

McArthur Burney Falls is located in the Cascade Range in California. It's 129' tall and 100 million gallons of water flow over its edge daily.

Mount Shasta, CA

Pretty impressive, huh? Mount Shasta is 14,162 feet high and has glacial snow that stays on the mountain year round. Jill & Judi even played in some of it.



This is a steam vent on the mountainside. We could hear a noise down the shoot that sounded like boiling water !! The chipmunks are tame and will beg for food if you stop -- gotta make sure you give them something healthy.

Hillsboro, OR

Back at Pat's home in Hillsboro, but we're not yet ready to drive the Tioga out to the north 40 !!

We're planning a trip to Mount Shasta in Northern California later this week & we're taking Jill and Elaine with us !! More pix on the way :)

Scenery through the West

What do you think of the scenery?

Pat was very worldly about all of this, but Judi was seriously impressed. These pix are from Wyoming, Idaho, Washington and Oregon.

Yellowstone National Park

A small portion of Yellowstone Lake.



At Yellowstone, there are geysers everywhere, but Old Faithful is the most dependable in its eruptions, so it's the famous one.




Isn't Mammoth Hot Springs beautiful? It's difficult to breathe when you're too close to them, but look at the colors created by chemical reaction !!