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| Our Caravan |
From Lakeview we traveled a short way west through Oregon and then 4 miles south into CA arriving at Tulelake. This is a 4 night stay in a fairground and our first time to park on grass (we wondered if we would sink in during the rains). While in Oregon, we had several nights of rain, which were very nice. Of course we don't get much rain in SoCal, so this was a welcome change.
Our first adventure was a visit to the Tule Lake Segregation Center and Camp Tulelake. Tule Lake has the dubious honor of being the largest of the WWII relocation centers in the US with 13,789 residents at its peak. In the west coast exclusion area, all US citizens of 1/16th Japanese heritage or more were required to leave their homes with only the personal items that they could carry and move to one of the centers. The centers were purposefully located in the middle of nowhere. Families lived in 20X20 foot barracks and shared bathrooms and mess halls.
Camp Tulelake was originally built by the Civilian Conservation Corps and later housed German POWs from 1944 to 1946. Our tour of both facilities lasted about 3 hours and was very educational. This is certainly something that we would not have done if we weren't on the caravan.
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| Camp Tulelake Mess Hall |
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Fortunately the Park Service is preserving
what is left of Camp Tulelake. |
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The Segregation Center buildings were all torn down and sold
as building materials |
Our day concluded on an up beat with a wonderful bike ride toward the lava beds which we would visit later in the week.
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| controlled field burn on bike ride |
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| Carmen, Emily & Jose |
The Cascade Range which runs north and south in the west/central area of Oregon is comprised of many volcanoes and their effect on the landscape is apparent. We visited the Lava Beds National Monument to get a closer look. Considering they are hundreds of thousands of years old, it is still amazing to me that they are so desolate. However, we would later learn that the volcanic ash makes for great pinot noir terroir. We also searched for petroglyphs but found only graffiti. I am sure my friend Adam, had nothing to do with this!
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| Jeff beside a lava field |
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| Or maybe it was the original Adam? |
Our final adventure was to go into one of the caves created by ancient lava flows. Lava tubes form when streams of hot, flowing lava start to cool. The center of the stream stays hot and continues to flow as the outside cools and hardens. Once the hot lava (Carly Reed's first words) drains out, a pipe like cave remains. Eventually the cave ceilings may collapse allowing an entrance into the cave. Bats live in many of the caves and you must take precautions not to potentially infect them with a fungus causing white-nose syndrome. The fungus is apparently spreading from Europe to the eastern US and Canada and killing huge numbers of bats along the way. We had been in a cave in the Netherlands in the past 10 years, but we were not wearing the same clothes, so we were able to enter the caves.
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| Entrance to Mushpot Cave |
