We are also trying to visit as many national parks as we can (there are 59 national parks and we have so far – in our lives – visited 33). This one was only open about 10 miles in from the northwest visitors’ center but we drove that 10 miles.  Far as we could go!

Although we were unable to visit any of the hot springs we did walk around Lake Manzanita and Bob took some beautiful pictures of Lassen Peak and Chaos Crags.

Don’t tell anyone but Bob accidentally took a Sequoia cone from the park when we visited there. He found it in the pocket of his jacket (which he hadn’t worn since then). So, he decided to compare that cone with one from a Ponderosa Pine.  Bigggggg difference. Sort of ironic when you think about the size of the Sequoias and look at their tiny cone! I was carrying the Ponderosa pinecone back to the car to get a quarter forcomparison in this picture when a park ranger pulled up and very politely said he couldn’t help but notice that I had a cone… I explained what we were doing and promised to leave it in the park. We didn’t tell him about the Sequoia cone!

Driving back to Red Bluff we saw this and stopped for a picture. So many interesting things out there!