Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge

 Great Egret

 I was lucky enough to spot this coyote.  This is actually the first one DJ and I  have ever seen in the wild. It was pretty exciting. We whistled and it watched us and responded.  He eventually ran off.

Between Lava Beds National Monument and Crater Lake is this Refuge.  DJ and I both agree we need to search out more places like this.  All we did was drive through it and saw some cool wildlife.  I would like to hike around or sit and watch for a while. I also saw (but no one else) a beautiful White Pelican. 

Sleepy Boys

All three of the boys travel well. We hardly had any problems this trip.  DJ wouldn't let anyone eat in his car.  Amazing we survivied! ;)

Reno NV

We stayed the night in Reno.  It wasn't very exciting.  We watched a roller derby team practice at a nearby park, had a nice dinner and walked around a shell of a town.  We stayed at Circus Circus and the boys loved playing at the Midway. We won lots of little stuffed animals that they still play and sleep with.  We have zero plans to ever go back to Reno. But I would like to see Lake Tahoe someday soon.

Lava Beds National Monument

We took an extra hour to detour here and see what it is. We didn't have time to hike any of the caves but we did stop to pick up some lava rocks.  Braden and Dominic wanted to bring some home to their friends. I would like to go back and explore some of the lava caves.

Bonneville Salt Flats

The kids did not care for this stop.  It was SOOOOOO bright.  Next time I'll bring sunglasses for everyone.

Crater Lake OR

 Crater Lake is quite possibly the most beautiful place I have ever been.  The pictures don't do it justice, the photographers fault!

Wizard Island behind us.  The volcano started to rebuild after it exploded. There are smaller hills like that under the water.  Apparently this volcano had multiple vents.

These next pic's show where there was a mini eruption before the major one.  The rocks running up the side are from a previous lava flow from one of it's multiple vents. These rocks are very old and date back many thousands of years.