Lava Bed National Monument

It's been a while since we've had service, so bear with us.  We have lots of updates coming...

We packed up early and left our peaceful campsite in Tahoe to get on the road.  We headed to the California/Oregon border to visit Lava Bed National Monument.  It's a pretty isolated national park, and it doesn't get many visitors each year.  We'd heard awesome things about it, so we headed that way to check it out.

There are over 800 lava tube caves at Lava Bed.  About 15-20 of those caves are developed enough that you can explore them easily.  You can drive Cave Loop and stop at several of those developed caves.  We stopped at the visitors center and got all the details, then we borrowed a few flashlights and set out to explore.  Mushpot Cave was the most developed cave.  There were lights and a paved path throughout the cave.  It was a good starter cave.

Once we got a feel for the caves, we started exploring some of the more difficult ones.  Many had steep ladders down into the cave, and some required duck walking and stooping.

One of our favorite caves was called Hopkins Chocolate Cave.  It was named because the man who discovered it, Hopkins, thought the lava walls looked like melted chocolate.

We were even able to find the graffiti he left on the cave wall way back in 1892!

Our favorite cave was called Sunshine Cave.  There were several collapsed areas that let the sun shine through.  Vegetation started growing, and it was so pretty inside.

We spent several hours in the caves before we headed back to camp.  Lava Bed has a small campground on site, and it was pretty desolate.  We only saw a few other cars there and never really ran into any other guests.

We made some dinner, played some ukulele, and went to bed early.  That seems to be our routine lately.  The kids are wiped out from all this adventure!  See you tomorrow.