Volcanoes always seemed so far away. They were in places like Hawaii and Japan. They were furious, with lava constantly exploding out of them, and I was scared. And then there were volcanoes that we made in science class. We used clay to make a mountain, and then we put in baking soda and vinegar, and they would bubble up, with bubbly lava spilling down the sides. I always liked making those. And that volcano that exploded long ago in the roman empire and preserved everything in ash – it's how we know so much about the mice in ancient Rome. But I never thought I would see an actual volcano.
Turns out, the Cascade mountains in northern California, Oregon and Washington are all dormant, or not so dormant volcanoes. Mt. St. Helens last erupted in 1989. That's only four years before I was born! That's not ancient history or anything at all. And the Cascades, those volcanic mountains, that's where we were going.
We had flown to San Francisco, and spent the first night with Kate's Aunt and Uncle. Yesterday we drove up to Mt. Shasta, a volcano, but a long time dormant. We stopped in a national forest campsite for the night, and everyone assembled tents and started supper, like clockwork. We've done this a lot, Kate had explained. I should have guessed that everyone in Kate's family would be a good traveler too.
Oh, but let me introduce you to her family. Kate's mom Sarah is tall and has wild curly gray hair, and is the second coolest mom in the world – after my mom of course. William is Kate's mom's partner, and he's been everywhere, including India. I want to go to India someday. He's got a white beard, and a white ponytail and is often mistaken for Santa Clause or Ali Baba. He says he tries to discourage the Santa Claus thing though, so forget about that. Kate's brother Ian is super tall! He's almost two meters tall. He just finished university, and now he's looking for a job. Much better to be traveling than working I say! So there were five of us, and lots of bags in the car that her family had rented.
Back to the campsite – after everything was set up and the chicken stew was cooking, Ian, Kate and I headed up to find this mysterious hidden lake. We were camped on a lake, but this was supposed to be above the lake on the opposite shore. The hidden lake wasn't so exciting, but on the way we found lots of these really cool plants. I hadn't seen them before, but Kate and Ian got supper excited.
“They are called pitcher plants” Kate explained. “They're carnivorous”
“Carnivorous! Will they eat me?!”
“No, no, carnivorous plants eat flies and little bugs. Don't worry, you're much too big and have much too much fur to be eaten by one of them.”
Reassured that these plants weren't going to eat my I stopped to examine them further. They are half a foot to a foot tall and a light green or yellow. They are hollow cylinders, with the ground end a bit thinner than the top end. And over the top is a leaf flap. Inside the plant, at the bottom is some water. I guess that the bugs fly in and get stuck in the water and sink to the bottom. And then they digest the bug! They are so cool. And there were hundreds of them, all growing together. Pitcher plant meadows.
Dinner was excellent, although there was no picnic table, so we all sat on the rocks or stood up to eat. And pretty soon it got dark and we all went to bed. And then it started raining. I love the sound of rain when I'm somewhere dry. It reminds me of being a little kid, and I went straight to sleep in the tent Kate and I were sharing and slept until morning.
Unknown to us, the others were not sleeping so well. Ian's tent had somehow gotten big holes in it since he had last used it. Although he valiantly tried to duct tape them, he woke up at three in the morning with water pouring into his tent. With amazing presence of mind for three in the morning he moved everything but his sleeping pad, which was already soaking wet, into the car, and then went to sleep, soaking wet and cold in the front passenger seat. William got up around three to go to the toilet, put his hand down on the floor of the tent, and felt waves beneath his hand. There was no water inside though. When he and Sarah woke up the next morning, the water had made it into a the tent, and the opened the flat to find that they had camped in Lake Superior. And so it was that we awoke, to find them all cold, wet, and grumpy, and felt a bit smug about the fact that we were dry. That smugness soon faded as we began to take down the tent, and my paws froze as a took the metal poles out of the tent.
We had a nice big breakfast at the black bear diner, by which time everyone felt much better. We were going to camp that night, but it was decided that the best thing to do would be to stay in a hotel and dry out all our gear and sleep in real and dry beds. We got to the motel early, but the lady at the desk was nice, telling us that just the day before there were people drying their gear in the parking lot, and of course we could check in early.
We had tents and gear everywhere – a tent on top of the car, a rain fly on the hood, the other tents, rain flys, mom's shoes, sleeping pads, cooking gear, ground cloth and table cloth all over the parking lot, and everything was weighted down with anything heavy we could find, because it all wanted to blow away. It was pretty funny looking. I'm sure everyone in the area could guess what happened to us.
After everything had dried, we piled back into the car to visit a lake William had wanted to see ever since he was a child.