Our weekend trip and the garden

My mom came to visit on July 7th for a few weeks. Over the first weekend, since Shannon had one weekend left of no school, we took a weekend trip. Just Shannon and I and it was not a Friday night but SAturday until Sunday night. Destination being Lassen Volcanic National Park. Neither of us had ever been there and it was a long drive from here, probably about 5-6 hours I believe. We drove to La Porte to stay at the cabin over night. That would have been a 3 1/2 hour drive since there was no traffic. However, after we left, as we were only 12 miles from home, we ran over what looked like a cardboard box that flew out of a truck in front of us. Well it was a wooden dresser drawer. So we pulled over (stop #1) to check out that and see if there was any damage. No problems we could see at the time so continue on. Stop #2 was to get gas. Stop number 3 was to get lunch. As we drove out of Vacaville we could hear something flapping under the car again so next stop was the VW dealership we had just passed (stop #4). Fortunately it was some screws missing causing the splash gaurd thing to flap, the fixed it, did not charge and off we went. Next stop (#5) was in Yuba City area to get groceries. Then once we hit La Porte, we stopped in at the general store and deli to get snacks and up to the cabin we went. This is probably the longest trip I have done to get to the cabin. I believe it took about 6 hours.
The weather was perfect up at Little Grass where the cabin is. We bbq'ed dinner and relaxed. Something we did not do last trip was relax. Between Shannon working on the deck repair the entire 4 days we were there and me running around with Katie, it was not relaxing. Next morning we drove down the La Porte Quincy road to Quincy,(saw lots of chipmunks while driving) had breakfast and then drove towards Lassen. This was a beautiful drive. Something that is not normal for me was I did not take many pictures due to camera issues.
Lassen was beautiful and interesting. Snow was still there and Highway we took, 89 I think, was just cleared a few days prior of snow and opened. Yes snow and this was July 10th weekend.
We saw so many interesting things and here are the pictures.

We could hear this stream/falls rushing from the road, it looks small but it was loud enough for me to hear, so we hiked up to find it.










This is actually a frozen lake which was cool to see!



This is where we put out the blanket and had lunch.

Yes that is a live bear and I am glad we were in the car when we saw it.

We also saw deer and what may have been a Bald Eagle.
We finished off the trip by driving home via Redding (109 degrees out) and all the way home to Dublin by about 8:30 that Sunday night. Fast trip!
It was a long drive but Shannon and I had a great little road trip get away! Hope to do it again. Thanks Mom for taking care of Katie. (pictures of Grandma Sue and Katie will be on the totsite)

Garden as of today, August 1st.
I am super excited about the garden. We have our first tomatoe,
some beautiful Dahlia's)
and sweet peas did ok and were pretty while they lasted. The other exciting thing is we have broccoli and 3 PUMPKINS!!!
As you see the broccoli is tiny but the pumpkins are so exciting to me.

Wait I forgot to mention the ooddles of tomatoes, and we dont even like them that much, maybe to make salsa or pasta sauce if we dare.

I am reading the information on what to do to keep these little pumpkins alive and growing and I will try to do a weekly picture update. Its so funny how excited I am about the pumpkins. Now I want to get a Halloween costume for Katie and do a Halloween party. (what a great idea