I took our son Ryan and my two nephews on a roadtrip the other day. We grabbed Steve's new Jeep for the trip. I took the boys over Greensprings mountain. This is the fun super-twisty up-hill road that we drove on SOT a couple of years ago, only this time it had a couple of inches of snow on it...
We headed through the Lower Klamath Wildlife Refuge which is a bottle neck in the Pacific flyway for migratory birds. There are year round bird residents in these wetlands, but during the migration season there are so many that you cannot see the water. First we went through the Lava Beds Caves. This are really a fun little adventure especially since weird Aunt Angela thinks it's really cool to crawl through the little openings in the caves that the "normal" people avoid...
After that I took the boys to Petroglyph Point. This is one of our areas great features that is pretty much hidden in plain site. Don't bother reasearch on the internet for it, you'll find so little information that it is almost a joke... Here's the skinny: The whole basin used to be flooded. The native people rowed canoes over to this island and scribed into the sandstone images. No one really knows what they mean. The lake was diked and large portions drained for farming. Amazing productive soil... The "island" became a rock outcropping in the middle of farmland. When the fields are fallow, the wind picks up the sand and blows it against the petroglyphs. They are disappearing... Probably during my lifetime, they will be gone forever.
This is a HUGE display. It is probably 250 meters or so long and 3-5 meters high. If you are ever in Northern California between Tulelake and Alturas, take a side trip to this place. Your speedster will get there on the paved road, hard-pack gravel the last 1/4 mile. I've been going to this site for over 30 years and it still never fails to thrill me.
angela
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