6 29 FOSSIL BEDS

Last nite we stayed in the "big" city of Burns. It should be the mosquito and cricket capital of the world. In the morning, a cricket walked over Arleen's mouth. Yuck!! We stayed in a different, more expensive motel the next nite.

We went to the Diamond Crater area for the day. It is not a national park or monument, just a point of interest.

The area is full of craters. Not the kind that are on the top of hills or mountains, but the kind that are just in the ground. Here are some pictures of some of them.

This one has had water in it for 6 thousand years and scientists are able to get lots of info from the sediment that has settled in the bottom.
See the 2 craters in the distance.

A big crater right in front of us and a cinder covered crater in the distance

Just imagine .... Oregon is the remnant of a living, farting landscape. (when you go to the bathroom, first you release gas, then solids and then maybe some more gas.....that is how many eruptions occurred.....ergo...farts:) )

When the gas filled first part of the eruption threw rocks into the air and made cinder. Then there would be a lava flow of solid material. Then there might be more cinder. See the similarities.

6 28 JOHN DAY FOSSIL BEDS

We drove today to the Painted Hills of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. We were hoping that we could see fossils, but we were dissappointed to find out that the fossil finding is only for the scientists. All they tell us is where the fossils were found and what info they got from them.

We went to the painted hills portion of the park. To get there we drove thru this crack in the lava flows. This crack has a road in it, and it wasn't made by man, but by nature. It was cool.


Look at the colors in these hills.

6 27 BEND TIMBERFEST

Went to Timberfest. The clerk at our motel told us where it was. Well he told us where he thought it was. It wasn’t. we called a place that Arleen thought might be where it was (a restaurant ranch). It wasn’t there either, but the nice man at he info center looked on the internet, bound out where it was to be held, and told us correctly how to get there. Wasn’t that nice of him. We got there at 10am when they were supposed to start. Well they started at about noon. It was lots of fun to watch and see what you don’t see on TV. Ie. What they have to do to set up the events. How the participants have to prepare. It was fun.

6 26 PAULINE PEAK

Today we decided to drive to the top of Pauline Peak (tho the day was a little hazy) and Century drive, that we thought from the maps we had, would take us to Sisters (a town).

First we went to the top of Paulina Peak which is actually the highest point on the Newberry Caldera. From there we had wonderful views of the volcanic area around Bend.

In the caldera are 2 lakes, Paulina and East Lakes. They used to be one lake until the mountain made cinder cones inside the caldera and separated the lake into 2 lakes.
view of Paulina Lake

One of the lava flows with Paulina lake in the background

more lava flows

Notice all the cinder cones in this picture. The whole area was just erupting like crazy back then.

View of Mount Jefferson from the peak

Turns out you can’t get there from here this time of year. We did drive around Mount Bachelor and see the ski area. We ended up right back at our hotel, without meaning to. We went Sisters to see the beginning of the Metolius River. It starts from 2 springs coming out of the ground with enough water to have a full sized river. Neat. And we helped, or tried to, feed peanuts to the ground squirrels. There were a half dozen people feeding them. They didn’t need to take any from us. It was fun to watch, since they would sit there and open the nuts right in front of you. They made lots of noise doing it, too.

6 24-25 BEND

Wednesday 6 24

Played golf at the Olde Back Nine. A cute 9 hole regulation course. We played 18 holes, walking (Duane of course carrying his clubs) That was fun too, tiring but fun

Thursday 6 25
We got our stuff together and ready to repack the car and leave on Friday. Then we read about a Timberfest with events like you see on TV, chopping and sawing and axe throwing. We had to stay and see that in person. So we extended our stay.

6 23 BEND

Sorry but the pictures went in on top of the text again. :( So you might want to read the text first, (or not) to help explain our day.

This is what the area looked like. So we had no idea what a cave entrance looked like.

when we found Boyd cave, the entrance was VERY easy to see

the collapsed lava tubes were very deep. Can you find Arleen? (guess this is a new game for this trip)

this is the hole we had to go thru to get to the second collapsed section

Again, can you see Arleen?

In the second collapsed section. It collapsed so long ago that pines have grown. It is rather nice down here. The end of the collapse is where the next crawling space is, that leads to the third section of the lava tube.

The next 5 pictures show Duane going thru the hole that leads to the next section. Note, you do not see Arleen doing this one.

Now you can't see him at all, but if you look closely you can see some light from his flashlite.

We kept looking for local lava tubes or ice caves. We went to Boyd cave. We followed instructions gotten on the internet. We found a sign that said Boyd cave trail. So we took it. After walking ½ mile, we got to a sign that said weren’t going the right way. We had looked at each pile of lava along the trail without finding any holes to climb into. It turns out that the trail named Boyd Cave did not go to Boyd Cave. We saw a truck go by while we were walking back and went to see if they knew anything we didn’t. They did. Right next to the parking spot is metal rails protecting people from the entrance to Boyd Cave. You couldn’t miss it if you tried. We went in the cave about ½ mile. This cave had no stairs (except for some broken down stairs going into the cave… the only way to get in without repelling) , not lights, no nothing. We were the only ones in the cave all the way in. no voices, no lights. When we got near the end, after scrambling over boulders a couple of times, Arleen had had enough, but not Duane. So he went on with his flashlight and Arleen sat in the dark, even tho she had a light, waiting for Duane to return. While she waited two other people arrived. Donny went where Duane had gone and Betty stayed with Arleen and they talked while waiting for the men. It made Arleen feel better knowing that Donny was going “in” because Duane only had one source of light, and therefore he was at risk if something happened to his flashlight (which didn’t happen). Everything went fine and we enjoyed our “inning” (not outing).

Then we went to Arnold cave….it was a bit of a disappointment since there was not much cave to explore and the ice was mostly gone. But we overheard a man telling his kids that there were lots of caves around. So Arleen asked him to tell her about it. Turns out the lava tube that includes Arnold Cave (the source of ice for central Oregon during the early 1900’s) continues on for quite a while. It has collapsed in many places. You can climb down into some of the collapsed sections and not into others. But, you can get between sections in some places by crawling thru cave parts. We both went thru one of these sections into the middle one. Turns out you can then go thru another and get into a third section. Duane went first and decided that Arleen would do better going back the way they had come. Duane continued on while Arleen waited to hear if he made it out in one non-broken piece. She finally heard from him and headed back to her tunnel. All went well and everyone got out with nothing worse that a few scratches.

6 22 BEND

We are really behind on our blogging. So, in order to catch up, I am going to post stuff without doing the usual sorting and organizing. So here we go.

We went to the lava casts forest, Newberry caldera saw Paulina falls, Obsidian lava flow (really nice on a sunny day to see the lava shine)

This is Paulina Falls.

View of Mt. Batchelor, near Bend

Life in the lava beds comes back slowly. Really weird to see a tree starting out.

Where do the roots go for nutrition?

The obsidian flow within the crater or caldera. Obsidian is lava glass and some of it is shiny and bright in the sunlight. We collected some obsidian outside of Lakeview, where it is legal to collect. You can come by and see it.

There is life within this vast flow of rock.

Then we went on to Lava Cast Forest. When the hot lava flowed over a living forest it was able to wrap around the trunk of the tree and cool before the tree caught fire. So when the tree burned up, a mold of the trunk was left in the cooled lava. (not a cast, the name is wrong).
This is a picture of the inside of the mold. As you can see, the lava was melted by the burning tree, which caused it to drip. We have seen this happen in lava tubes also.

When many trees get knocked down by the lava flow, you can get a log jam of casts. Doesn't this one look like a mean face?

Looking down a cast

Sometimes the lava builds up against the side of the trunk as it cools. This tells us which way the lava was flowing.

A long cast

Occasionally the trees are cast laying down. This is one.

Life within this lava flow.