Labor Day Weekend 2011: Southern Oregon & Northern California
For Labor Day this year, I had traveled with my girl friend, Sarah, and her mom up to Klamath Falls, Oregon, to visit her Uncle, have a side trip to visit Crater Lake National Park, then visit her grandpa and his wife in Fall River Mills, east of Mt. Shasta. The blog about the trip is below. Enjoy. Why is the text in purple? Because dark purple is like my second favorite color, so shush!
I spent the day slowly packing my duffel bag, and preparing my camera equipment for the trip. Of course, procrastination occurred, which is normal for me especially when it comes to packing for trips. I had left for Ontario Airport at 4:30 pm. I had my dad drive me, for I didn't want to leave my car parked at the airport for 6 days. We stopped over to pick up my grandma, for they were going to eat dinner after they drop me off, and we headed out to Ontario. I got to the airport, said good bye and went through the usual routine of checking in the bags, going through security, and getting on the place. I felt strange flying this late in the day to Sacramento, for normally im flying home from Sacramento at the end of the day. I landed in Sacramento at 8:10 pm. Headed down to baggage claim, grabbed my bag, and texted Sarah letting her know I had landed, and waiting to be picked up. Then I waited.
Sarah's mom is a caretaker for an old guy in Rocklin, which is about 45 minutes away from the airport. It had seemed that they could not leave till he fell asleep for the night, and that was understandable, so I wasn't sure when I was to be picked up from the airport. The airport was empty for awhile, which made sense for a Thursday, but before long, swarms of people began to fill the baggage claim, which I thought was strange for a Thursday. I was expecting Friday night to be that way with it being a holiday, but maybe people got a head start tonight. After awhile of being bored waiting, I decided to walk over the the small Starbucks cart to get a coffee, since I knew we were going to have a long night ahead of us. I was 11th in line, and only one person was working. I almost felt guilty for making the line longer for the girl worker, but I really wanted some coffee. I ordered a White Chocolate Iced Mocha, which is one of my favorite drinks at Starbucks. After Starbucks I just waited some more, while playing games on my iphone. Around 9:20, I had received texts that they are on their way, and had gotten on the 5 by downtown Sacramento. I waiting for a few more moments inside, then headed outside. Cars were everywhere. I felt as if it was a Friday night, but it wasn't. About 10 minutes later, Sarah calls me, and I noticed they parked just before they got to me. I walked over to her car, put my things in the trunk, and got it. We were now on our way up north.
A few days before the trip, I had posted on facebook where I was going to be this holiday weekend. Sarah had commented on that post saying that plans had changed, and we were not going up to Oregon. From that I was a little disappointed because I was looking forward to see Crater Lake since I have never been there, but I figured it just wasn't my time to visit that place. As we started heading north on the 5, I asked where we were headed, and Sarah's mom said Crater Lake. It had seemed that she was just pulling my leg, and that we were going up to southern Oregon. I got pleased. The drive was long, 6 hours. Normally, after a few hours, the trip seems to last forever, but it didn't seem that way with me tonight. I guess it was because of the excitement, then I got tired. We stopped in Weed, CA, for a pit stop and get some snacks, then continued up to Klamath Falls, OR. We had arrived to our hotel, Motel 6, in Klamath Falls at 3 am on Friday. We went to bed as fast as we could because we had planned to get up and leave for Crater Lake at 7 am. I think I only got around 2 hours of sleep, because for some reason, I couldn't fall asleep. Probably from being excited, but didn't make sense since I was super tired from a long day.
Friday Sept. 2, 2011
Our phone alarms woke us up at 7 am. I know all of us were tired from the long night the day before, and took us a little strength to get out of bed. Sarah and her mom started to get ready while I just laid in bed for awhile, until the bathroom was clear, so I can get ready. We check out of the hotel, and went to have breakfast at a local restaurant called Casey's. The food was really good. I got gravy and biscuits, which I never have, so it was a nice change from the usual. After breakfast, we headed on the road, up north to Crater Lake National Park.
It only took an hour and a half to get to Crater Lake. We drove up to the Rim Village, parked, and walked around. We walked right past the buildings, and headed right to the rim edge, to see the view of the lake. The lake was just beautiful. The water was a super dark blue color. Sarah said it looked like someone poured blue food coloring into the water. I said the water looked as if it was berry blue Jello. We walked the pathway enjoying the view. I just couldn't stop looking at that water, and taking photos of the view. I took photos in a way at some points of views to create a panorama photo of the crater and the lake, since the crater is too huge for one photograph. Funny thing is, I haven't tried working on that yet, and I will once this paragraph is done so I can place it in the blog. After a little ways, there was a cool small visitor center with a great view point that told you more information about the volcano and how Crater Lake formed. Sarah and I went down to the center, while her mom watched the dogs. From that view point, you can see the shore of the lake, which I really wanted to go down to. I knew there were some hiking trails to get to the shore, but we wouldn't have time this trip to get down. We walked the pathway till we got to the Rim Village Lodge Hotel, then we headed back to look at the gift shop. While at the Rim Village, we had learned there is a two hour boat tour of the lake, and someday, I have plans to return to take that boat tour. Once we got back to the car, we had decided we had time to drive around the entire rim of the crater, to get different view points of the lake. We stopped at different view points to take photos, and enjoy the view. On the east side of the lake, we stopped to see the Phantom Ship, which was a cool rock formation that sticks out of the water, and looks like a crazy ship. After we drove around the rim of Crater Lake, we hit the road, and headed on back down to Klamath Falls. (Time to open up Photoshop and work on that panorama photo to post it here :) ) Done! Not the best, but good for my first time. The first panorama is the view from the Rim Village. The second panorama is from the east side of the crater.
We had left around 11:30 to head out to the falls. Of course, knowing me, my main goal for seeing Burney falls was to take some great photographs. Everyone but Sarah's grandpa had gone to see the falls. We had arrived, and we first got to the over look of the falls. They were just beautiful. In the center of the falls, you had two main streams of water flowing over the cliff in the canyon, then you had water seeping out of the rock surrounding the center falls, which made the falls look more beautiful than any other fall I had seen. This area is a very large volcanic area, and at the top of the cliff, there is a layer of dirt, sediment, then a thick layer of basalt from the last volcanic eruption, then more dirt underneath. As erosion took place, it had seemed the river had washed away the sediment on top, exposing the basalt layer beneath. This caused water to flow into the rock, and flow out at the cliff causing the beautiful Burney Falls we see to day. It had seemed that Teddy Roosevelt claimed these falls as the 8th wonder of the world, because of how beautiful the falls are. The pool below the falls were a beautiful bright blue color, which I thought was super amazing. After the overlook, we walked down into the canyon to get a closer view of the falls. There were a lot of people all over the place, including a boy scout group. The groups of people made it hard to photograph the falls. Another problem I had while shooting photographs was the sun. The center part of the falls were exposed in the sun light, and it caused me to not be successful with long time exposures. You can see in the photo below the people that were in the way and the harsh light I am talking about. We had decided I would return at sunset or sunrise the next day for a second attempt. The photo here is from this day. I shall post the results of my second trip when the blog gets to that point.
After Burney Falls, we went back to the house, and just chilled for awhile. We had homemade hamburgers for lunch, Sarah and I watched Karate Kid 3, which was on tv, then we started working on dinner. People wanted pizza, so Sarah baked two different pizzas. A BBQ Chicken pizza and some type of pizza with spinach. I helped cook the sausage for the spinach one. For those who know me, I hate spinach, so I ate the BBQ Chicken pizza. Only issue I have with the BBQ Chicken Pizza is the onions. I ate them, except for a few large pizzas. For desert, we had a homemade cherry pie. Now, im not a big cherry pie, but I had a piece because I wanted to try the pie from cherries grown on the property and in a homemade pie. It was really good. We also had ice cream with the pie. Right after dinner, Sarah and I attempted to take off to return to Burney Falls, but as we were driving out of the property, I looked into the sky and realized it would be too late by the time we would arrive at the falls, so instead of waisting the gas, I had Sarah turn around. We shall attempt to wake up early, and get there before the sun hits the falls, and before people clog the area for attempts to take photographs. After dinner, we just chilled at the dinning table, then around 9:30, people started to go to bed. Sarah and I attempted to go to bed, but we were unable to go to bed till around 11. We finally forces ourselves to sleep for we knew tomorrow would be another early morning.
Sunday Sept. 4, 2011
We had set our alarms for 7:00 am. It took us a good 20 mins to gain the curage to get out of bed, for we were exhausted. We slowly prepared to go and headed on our way back to Burney Falls. We arrived at the state park at 8:30, but the booth that you pay in to enter wouldn't be open for another 30 mins. Luckily some volunteers were unpacking a car, and told us we can place the money in an envelope, and place a paper in the wind shield proving we paid the $7.00 fee. The falls were perfect. It was a little cold, but no one was around. It was just Sarah, my camera, the falls, and I. In my mind, it was perfect. I had walked down to the base of the pool, right in front of the falls. Tried doing some long time exposure, but I had a major issue with the mist of the falls sticking to the lens of the camera. For this, I was also shooting with a neutral density filter, first time ever. In between the neutral density filter and the UV filter, moister would get it, causing a fog, messing with my shots. I was forced to move my location, so I moved to the lowest view point of the falls, which was just a little bit higher in elevation and to the east of where I was originally located. Had the same problem, so I had to walk back up the path way, and take my photos along the pathway and upper viewing area right at the side of the falls. Once that problem was fixed, it was perfect. I did a lot of experimentation on my photography. We spent about 30 mins there, and I am very glad that Sarah was patient and with me with the early morning, cold, and getting wet from the falls mist situation. I personally would have stayed longer, but since we didn't had breakfast, I was getting hungry as well. Before we left, I took a video recording with my camera of the falls. Below is another full image of the falls, and the video recording I took there.
We had to drive on some unpaved roads to get to the crater. Sarah's Grandpa knew the roads real well since he goes hunting in the area. As were where driving closer to the crater, we had noticed many turkey vultures sitting on a dead tree and flying in the air. As we got closer, we saw I dead cow, with it's stomach ripped open. The vultures were enjoying the dead animal's flesh. We kept driving on towards the crater. From google maps, the crater didn't look to be that big, and I had originally thought we were going to hike up into the crater. As we got close to the crater, I had noticed the crater was way bigger than the other volcanoes I have geocached in. Luckily, there is a road that took us up into the volcano. The crater was large compared to what I was used to. We first drove on the rim of the crater, and got a good view of fall river valley, including the town, the lava fields, the cattle ranches, and the house. After enjoying the view, we drove to the center of the crater. If you look at this image in this paragraph, you will see that the geocaches are positioned in the crater like a smiley face, and that is what grabbed my attention when looking for geocaches in the area before I traveled up. We first found the nose of the face in the middle of the crater. Then we drove north till the road ended, and walked about .2 miles in each direction through the forest to get the eye balls. While hiking to the left eye ball, we came across some bear scat, which I thought was cool because it would mean there is a chance we can see some awesome wildlife in the crater. After we found both eyes, we drove to the east to start working on the mouth geocaches. These caches ended up being up hill, as you were hiking up to the rim of the crater. We had left the car and hiked to all of the caches of the mouth. The last geocache, the most west cache in the mouth, was behind a large group of mazanita bushes. I hesitated to go trough the large bushes, but in the end I sucked it up and went through them. Sarah's Grandpa went walking back to get the car, and Sarah stayed at the road, for she didn't want to go through the bushes, and someone needed to stay so her grandpa could find us. Her grandpa's wife and I went walking through the thick brush, about 250 feet of it. Once we got out, I didn't see any good hiding locations, but I noticed a small pine tree was all alone to the west of where I was standing. I went over, and with the GPS telling me where it was located I had found the last cache. It was a great geocaching adventure going through the forests of the crater, and I was glad we had found them all. It was great to be outside and hiking. Very glad there were roads in the crater, because this could have been a very long adventure, but it only took one hour. On the drive back, we stopped on a small bridge over the Fall River to look to see what fish was in the area. It was hard to see, but I did get to see some large trout just enjoying their day in the water. Many people come from all over to go fishing at the Fall River. Also while driving back, we had noticed a few clouds show up in the sky, in the horizon. Sarah's grandpa said it looks like rain will be on the way. When I looked at the clouds, they didn't look anything like rain clouds, so I questioned it a little, but then stated that it would be cool if it would rain all night, after we got home from the fair.
After we got home, we were lazy for the rest of the day, until it was time to go to the Inter-Mountain Fair, which was the main reason why we made the trip up here. The fair grounds were way smaller than any fair I had ever been too. We got to the fair grounds around 6:30, which is located in McAurther, CA. The first thing we did was walk over to the grand stands to save our seats. We were at the fair to see the demolition derby that was going to take place that night. We had saved our seats with tons of blankets, then Sarah and I went to explore the fair. While we were looking through all the food vendors, trying to figure out what to get for dinner, we got a call from Sarah's mom, and we headed back to the bleachers. On the way back, we stopped at the photography building, to look at all the photographs entered in the farm. It had seemed they weren't going to have the area as big as they had in the past, and we were in the nose bleed section. We decided to move to the bleachers way on the other side of the arena. After we got settled in again, Sarah and I went off to get food. I was in the mood for corn dogs, so we first stopped to get corn dogs. Then Sarah went to get Chinese food. On the way back, I stopped to get an shaved ice, with kiwi flavoring. Those corn dogs were amazing and totally hit the spot. It isn't a fair unless you have corn dogs. As we were getting food, a wind had picked up, and the sky started getting dark with storm clouds. In the far distance, you can see the rain falling from clouds on the other side of the valley. It had seemed Sarah's grandpa was right, and I probably jinxed it that it would rain from me hopping for rain. After we got our food, the wind started really picking up, and the sky started to roar of thunder. I personally got excited, because I love lightning/thunder storms and rain. We got back to the bleachers, which are uncovered by the way, and started questioning if it would rain and they would cancel the derby. The rain had started coming down, and thunder roared the sky, with an occasional flash from the lightning. They had shut down all the rides because of safety. After about 30 mins, the rain had stopped, the clouds moved on, and the sky had started to clear up. The demolition derby was still on. The demolition derby lasted for about three hours. As it started, other family members had arrived. We were right by the arena where the cars were fighting each other. We all had picked cars guess who would win. Of course, because im a big James Bond fan, I just had to pick the car number 007. It has seemed it was good choice, for that car made it till the final round where everyone just flights till the death of their cars. Sadly, he didn't win, because he ended up getting stuck between other cars that couldn't move. Because we were sitting right next to the arena, there were times that a car would go driving by where we were sitting, and mud would fly over all of us. This was my first demolition derby, and it was fun to see. After the derby had ended, and they called the winner, I noticed a driver got out of his car near us, started running towards the other side of the arena. Then I saw him throw a punch at another driver, and a fight broke out. We stayed to watch the fight, but it quickly was broken up. We had left the fair, when home, and went to bed, for we had another early morning the next day. I tried to take a photo of the derby, and the image below was the only one I got. Not that exciting, but you can see how close we were sitting and such. Taken from my iphone. It was taken with me sitting on the bleachers.
Monday Sept. 5, 2011
This would be the morning we would have to wake up the earliest on this trip. We had to wake up at 5 am, get ready and get out the door back to the Inter-Mountain Fair. Sarah's grandpa flies planes, and he is apart of a club. This club, along with the sherrif's department, runs a breakfast for the buyers coming to the animal auctions. They had a large trailer, which they had grills and other supplies on, and that was outside. Sarah was assigned to crack eggs when the orders came in. I at first ended up just standing around, but then I got assigned to help Sarah's mom by being her egg cracker. I had cracked and scrambled many eggs. We would cook breakfast from 7 am till 9 am. Once the crowd had slowed down, we had a chance to stop and eat breakfast ourselves. While I was eating breakfast, bees started flying around me. I figured they were after the sugar in someone's drink, but Sarah and her mom told me they were after my ham, for those bees love meat. I had never know that there were bees that liked meat. I quickly ate my ham, and they went away. After breakfast we helped clean up a little bit. Then we said out goodbyes, and we headed from the fair grounds on the long drive home. We had arrived back in Rocklin, near Sacramento, around 4 ish in the afternoon, and we were beat. We had dinner, then went to Olivehurst, and went to sleep, for we all were exhausted.
This trip was filled with many different and fun adventures. Crater Lake and Burney Falls were just beautiful. The Inter-Mountain Fair was a cool little fair. The Fall River Valley was cool and nice to see, with the river, the geological features of volcanic activity, and being out in the country side. Even though it was fun, it was nice to had returned to civilization. In my view point, the country side is nice to visit, but I would find myself bored and unhappy living out in the middle of nowhere after awhile. The trip had lasted till Tuesday night, but nothing really happened other than us going back to Rocklin, hanging out and resting from out long trip. I had flown home Tuesday night. This trip had was the last trip of my long and epic summer of adventures.
We arrived down to Klamath Falls. We stopped off at North Shore Hawaiian BBQ, which is a local restaurant which Sarah said was really good. We ordered teriyaki chicken, steamed rice, and macaroni salad. We ordered, grabbed our food, and headed over to Sarah's Uncles place. We got to his place, and waited around for a few moments while he was working. He works from his home. After he was done, we all had lunch, which I have to say, the North Shore Hawaiian BBQ was great. If I was ever in Klamath Falls again, I would return to get some food from that place. After lunch, Sarah and I went to the bank and to Walmart to go buy a few things. When you thought Walmart would have just about everything, it seems they don't have caution tape. While shopping, I noticed a life magazine that called 100 places you need to see in your lifetime, or something close to that. It was 100 places in the US you should see in your lifetime. I started looking through it and started just dreaming of all the adventures I still have to do. Saw one page on the San Juan Islands, and totally made me miss Friday Harbor and San Juan Island. I so hope to return someday. Anyway, we returned to her Uncle's, stayed for about 30 more minutes, then we headed back on the road, to head back into California, and get to Sarah's grandparents house in Fall River Mills.
Unlike the other drives on the trip, this drive seemed to last forever. I ended up sleeping for over half the drive, since I was exhausted from the past 24 hours. We drove on a two lane highway that seemed to take us deeper and deeper into the middle of nowhere. As we got close to Fall River Valley, I started to notice all the volcanic features in the landscape, from lava fields to small composite volcanoes. In the horizon to the southeast of the car, you can see Mt. Lassen, and to the west, you can see Mt. Shasta, both covered with snow. We had arrived in Fall River Valley, and drove through McArthur, then Fall River Mills. As we were driving around, I spotted a small volcano crater, called Timbered Crater. I had known about it, because of the geocaches hidden inside that I wanted to find.
We had arrived shortly after at Sarah's grandparents house. The house was good sized, with a few acres of land surrounding the house. In front of the house was a large lawn, fruit trees, nut trees, and just beyond the lawn was a lake, with a dock. I had learned that all the house near the lake take all their water from the lake, which I thought was nice. Sarah's grandpa was a plumber and has a intense filter system that only allows anything less than 1 micron through, which was super clean. Next to the house had a large workshop, and in the back of the house had horses with lots of room to move around. There was also a small pond filled with ducks, and a section of the grass next to the pond that had an electric fence to protect the ducks from predators at night. We had introductions, then we all sat down for dinner. It had seemed that dove season had opened the day before we arrived, and since her grandpa is into hunting, he went out hunting for dove. He then stayed up late that night breasting them so they could be cooked. We had dove for dinner, and filet minon. I first was afraid to eat the dove, but out of respect, I had to try it. I ended up eating a few pieces of dove, then went to the steak. After dinner, we sat at the table and had conversations until it was bed time. The house had many rooms, which the house was totally remodeled by Sarah's grandma. Each room was huge! We all prepared for bed and went to sleep. It was hard to try to go to sleep because it was only 10:00. It took me about an hour to fall asleep.
We had arrived shortly after at Sarah's grandparents house. The house was good sized, with a few acres of land surrounding the house. In front of the house was a large lawn, fruit trees, nut trees, and just beyond the lawn was a lake, with a dock. I had learned that all the house near the lake take all their water from the lake, which I thought was nice. Sarah's grandpa was a plumber and has a intense filter system that only allows anything less than 1 micron through, which was super clean. Next to the house had a large workshop, and in the back of the house had horses with lots of room to move around. There was also a small pond filled with ducks, and a section of the grass next to the pond that had an electric fence to protect the ducks from predators at night. We had introductions, then we all sat down for dinner. It had seemed that dove season had opened the day before we arrived, and since her grandpa is into hunting, he went out hunting for dove. He then stayed up late that night breasting them so they could be cooked. We had dove for dinner, and filet minon. I first was afraid to eat the dove, but out of respect, I had to try it. I ended up eating a few pieces of dove, then went to the steak. After dinner, we sat at the table and had conversations until it was bed time. The house had many rooms, which the house was totally remodeled by Sarah's grandma. Each room was huge! We all prepared for bed and went to sleep. It was hard to try to go to sleep because it was only 10:00. It took me about an hour to fall asleep.
Saturday Sept. 3, 2011
One thing I have learned about people in the country are that they go to sleep early, and they wake up in the morning early. Not a type of schedule that goes with a college student who lives in suburbia. Sarah's grandpa doesn't really wait fir anyone, so we have to be awake and out of bed while he is making breakfast before he attempts to wake us up. We had our phone alarms wake us up at 6:30, of course we didn't get out of bed till close to 7. As we got downstairs, Sarah's grandpa and his wife started cooking breakfast. We had hashbrowns, eggs, and sausage patties for breakfast. One thing I had learned was that the grandpa's wife makes many homemade things, including jam and jelly. I tried her blackberry jelly on some toast, and it was amazing! The blackberries came from a bush just down the road from the house. While at breakfast we talked about plans for the weekend, and had decided to adventure out to Berney Falls, which was one of the things I had been wanting to see since Sarah told be about thenfalls a few months ago.
We had left around 11:30 to head out to the falls. Of course, knowing me, my main goal for seeing Burney falls was to take some great photographs. Everyone but Sarah's grandpa had gone to see the falls. We had arrived, and we first got to the over look of the falls. They were just beautiful. In the center of the falls, you had two main streams of water flowing over the cliff in the canyon, then you had water seeping out of the rock surrounding the center falls, which made the falls look more beautiful than any other fall I had seen. This area is a very large volcanic area, and at the top of the cliff, there is a layer of dirt, sediment, then a thick layer of basalt from the last volcanic eruption, then more dirt underneath. As erosion took place, it had seemed the river had washed away the sediment on top, exposing the basalt layer beneath. This caused water to flow into the rock, and flow out at the cliff causing the beautiful Burney Falls we see to day. It had seemed that Teddy Roosevelt claimed these falls as the 8th wonder of the world, because of how beautiful the falls are. The pool below the falls were a beautiful bright blue color, which I thought was super amazing. After the overlook, we walked down into the canyon to get a closer view of the falls. There were a lot of people all over the place, including a boy scout group. The groups of people made it hard to photograph the falls. Another problem I had while shooting photographs was the sun. The center part of the falls were exposed in the sun light, and it caused me to not be successful with long time exposures. You can see in the photo below the people that were in the way and the harsh light I am talking about. We had decided I would return at sunset or sunrise the next day for a second attempt. The photo here is from this day. I shall post the results of my second trip when the blog gets to that point. 
After Burney Falls, we went back to the house, and just chilled for awhile. We had homemade hamburgers for lunch, Sarah and I watched Karate Kid 3, which was on tv, then we started working on dinner. People wanted pizza, so Sarah baked two different pizzas. A BBQ Chicken pizza and some type of pizza with spinach. I helped cook the sausage for the spinach one. For those who know me, I hate spinach, so I ate the BBQ Chicken pizza. Only issue I have with the BBQ Chicken Pizza is the onions. I ate them, except for a few large pizzas. For desert, we had a homemade cherry pie. Now, im not a big cherry pie, but I had a piece because I wanted to try the pie from cherries grown on the property and in a homemade pie. It was really good. We also had ice cream with the pie. Right after dinner, Sarah and I attempted to take off to return to Burney Falls, but as we were driving out of the property, I looked into the sky and realized it would be too late by the time we would arrive at the falls, so instead of waisting the gas, I had Sarah turn around. We shall attempt to wake up early, and get there before the sun hits the falls, and before people clog the area for attempts to take photographs. After dinner, we just chilled at the dinning table, then around 9:30, people started to go to bed. Sarah and I attempted to go to bed, but we were unable to go to bed till around 11. We finally forces ourselves to sleep for we knew tomorrow would be another early morning.
Sunday Sept. 4, 2011
We had set our alarms for 7:00 am. It took us a good 20 mins to gain the curage to get out of bed, for we were exhausted. We slowly prepared to go and headed on our way back to Burney Falls. We arrived at the state park at 8:30, but the booth that you pay in to enter wouldn't be open for another 30 mins. Luckily some volunteers were unpacking a car, and told us we can place the money in an envelope, and place a paper in the wind shield proving we paid the $7.00 fee. The falls were perfect. It was a little cold, but no one was around. It was just Sarah, my camera, the falls, and I. In my mind, it was perfect. I had walked down to the base of the pool, right in front of the falls. Tried doing some long time exposure, but I had a major issue with the mist of the falls sticking to the lens of the camera. For this, I was also shooting with a neutral density filter, first time ever. In between the neutral density filter and the UV filter, moister would get it, causing a fog, messing with my shots. I was forced to move my location, so I moved to the lowest view point of the falls, which was just a little bit higher in elevation and to the east of where I was originally located. Had the same problem, so I had to walk back up the path way, and take my photos along the pathway and upper viewing area right at the side of the falls. Once that problem was fixed, it was perfect. I did a lot of experimentation on my photography. We spent about 30 mins there, and I am very glad that Sarah was patient and with me with the early morning, cold, and getting wet from the falls mist situation. I personally would have stayed longer, but since we didn't had breakfast, I was getting hungry as well. Before we left, I took a video recording with my camera of the falls. Below is another full image of the falls, and the video recording I took there.
As I was packing up my camera and the tripod, Sarah had discovered that she didn't have her car keys. She had thought that she had locked them in her car. We walked up out of the small canyon where the falls was located, and as we were walking back to Sarah's car, she had noticed the keys were left on the roof of the car. Lucky we were in the middle of the country side, with no people around. Some people in other areas would have loved to take an opportunity of that situation, which is really sad. We got in the car, and we drove on back to Fall River Mills. We got to the house, had ourselves from breakfast, and sat around for awhile. Sarah and her mom had to do some homework, so they did it during that time. Around lunch time, I had started talking about the geocaching adventure I wanted to do in the volcano that was behind the house a few miles, called the Timbered Crater. There were 8 geocaches hidden inside the extinct composite volcano, and of course, I would love to find them all. Sarah didn't seem to want to go, but after some convincing, Sarah, her grandpa and his wife, and myself went on the geocaching adventure.
We had to drive on some unpaved roads to get to the crater. Sarah's Grandpa knew the roads real well since he goes hunting in the area. As were where driving closer to the crater, we had noticed many turkey vultures sitting on a dead tree and flying in the air. As we got closer, we saw I dead cow, with it's stomach ripped open. The vultures were enjoying the dead animal's flesh. We kept driving on towards the crater. From google maps, the crater didn't look to be that big, and I had originally thought we were going to hike up into the crater. As we got close to the crater, I had noticed the crater was way bigger than the other volcanoes I have geocached in. Luckily, there is a road that took us up into the volcano. The crater was large compared to what I was used to. We first drove on the rim of the crater, and got a good view of fall river valley, including the town, the lava fields, the cattle ranches, and the house. After enjoying the view, we drove to the center of the crater. If you look at this image in this paragraph, you will see that the geocaches are positioned in the crater like a smiley face, and that is what grabbed my attention when looking for geocaches in the area before I traveled up. We first found the nose of the face in the middle of the crater. Then we drove north till the road ended, and walked about .2 miles in each direction through the forest to get the eye balls. While hiking to the left eye ball, we came across some bear scat, which I thought was cool because it would mean there is a chance we can see some awesome wildlife in the crater. After we found both eyes, we drove to the east to start working on the mouth geocaches. These caches ended up being up hill, as you were hiking up to the rim of the crater. We had left the car and hiked to all of the caches of the mouth. The last geocache, the most west cache in the mouth, was behind a large group of mazanita bushes. I hesitated to go trough the large bushes, but in the end I sucked it up and went through them. Sarah's Grandpa went walking back to get the car, and Sarah stayed at the road, for she didn't want to go through the bushes, and someone needed to stay so her grandpa could find us. Her grandpa's wife and I went walking through the thick brush, about 250 feet of it. Once we got out, I didn't see any good hiding locations, but I noticed a small pine tree was all alone to the west of where I was standing. I went over, and with the GPS telling me where it was located I had found the last cache. It was a great geocaching adventure going through the forests of the crater, and I was glad we had found them all. It was great to be outside and hiking. Very glad there were roads in the crater, because this could have been a very long adventure, but it only took one hour. On the drive back, we stopped on a small bridge over the Fall River to look to see what fish was in the area. It was hard to see, but I did get to see some large trout just enjoying their day in the water. Many people come from all over to go fishing at the Fall River. Also while driving back, we had noticed a few clouds show up in the sky, in the horizon. Sarah's grandpa said it looks like rain will be on the way. When I looked at the clouds, they didn't look anything like rain clouds, so I questioned it a little, but then stated that it would be cool if it would rain all night, after we got home from the fair. 
After we got home, we were lazy for the rest of the day, until it was time to go to the Inter-Mountain Fair, which was the main reason why we made the trip up here. The fair grounds were way smaller than any fair I had ever been too. We got to the fair grounds around 6:30, which is located in McAurther, CA. The first thing we did was walk over to the grand stands to save our seats. We were at the fair to see the demolition derby that was going to take place that night. We had saved our seats with tons of blankets, then Sarah and I went to explore the fair. While we were looking through all the food vendors, trying to figure out what to get for dinner, we got a call from Sarah's mom, and we headed back to the bleachers. On the way back, we stopped at the photography building, to look at all the photographs entered in the farm. It had seemed they weren't going to have the area as big as they had in the past, and we were in the nose bleed section. We decided to move to the bleachers way on the other side of the arena. After we got settled in again, Sarah and I went off to get food. I was in the mood for corn dogs, so we first stopped to get corn dogs. Then Sarah went to get Chinese food. On the way back, I stopped to get an shaved ice, with kiwi flavoring. Those corn dogs were amazing and totally hit the spot. It isn't a fair unless you have corn dogs. As we were getting food, a wind had picked up, and the sky started getting dark with storm clouds. In the far distance, you can see the rain falling from clouds on the other side of the valley. It had seemed Sarah's grandpa was right, and I probably jinxed it that it would rain from me hopping for rain. After we got our food, the wind started really picking up, and the sky started to roar of thunder. I personally got excited, because I love lightning/thunder storms and rain. We got back to the bleachers, which are uncovered by the way, and started questioning if it would rain and they would cancel the derby. The rain had started coming down, and thunder roared the sky, with an occasional flash from the lightning. They had shut down all the rides because of safety. After about 30 mins, the rain had stopped, the clouds moved on, and the sky had started to clear up. The demolition derby was still on. The demolition derby lasted for about three hours. As it started, other family members had arrived. We were right by the arena where the cars were fighting each other. We all had picked cars guess who would win. Of course, because im a big James Bond fan, I just had to pick the car number 007. It has seemed it was good choice, for that car made it till the final round where everyone just flights till the death of their cars. Sadly, he didn't win, because he ended up getting stuck between other cars that couldn't move. Because we were sitting right next to the arena, there were times that a car would go driving by where we were sitting, and mud would fly over all of us. This was my first demolition derby, and it was fun to see. After the derby had ended, and they called the winner, I noticed a driver got out of his car near us, started running towards the other side of the arena. Then I saw him throw a punch at another driver, and a fight broke out. We stayed to watch the fight, but it quickly was broken up. We had left the fair, when home, and went to bed, for we had another early morning the next day. I tried to take a photo of the derby, and the image below was the only one I got. Not that exciting, but you can see how close we were sitting and such. Taken from my iphone. It was taken with me sitting on the bleachers.
Monday Sept. 5, 2011
This would be the morning we would have to wake up the earliest on this trip. We had to wake up at 5 am, get ready and get out the door back to the Inter-Mountain Fair. Sarah's grandpa flies planes, and he is apart of a club. This club, along with the sherrif's department, runs a breakfast for the buyers coming to the animal auctions. They had a large trailer, which they had grills and other supplies on, and that was outside. Sarah was assigned to crack eggs when the orders came in. I at first ended up just standing around, but then I got assigned to help Sarah's mom by being her egg cracker. I had cracked and scrambled many eggs. We would cook breakfast from 7 am till 9 am. Once the crowd had slowed down, we had a chance to stop and eat breakfast ourselves. While I was eating breakfast, bees started flying around me. I figured they were after the sugar in someone's drink, but Sarah and her mom told me they were after my ham, for those bees love meat. I had never know that there were bees that liked meat. I quickly ate my ham, and they went away. After breakfast we helped clean up a little bit. Then we said out goodbyes, and we headed from the fair grounds on the long drive home. We had arrived back in Rocklin, near Sacramento, around 4 ish in the afternoon, and we were beat. We had dinner, then went to Olivehurst, and went to sleep, for we all were exhausted.
This trip was filled with many different and fun adventures. Crater Lake and Burney Falls were just beautiful. The Inter-Mountain Fair was a cool little fair. The Fall River Valley was cool and nice to see, with the river, the geological features of volcanic activity, and being out in the country side. Even though it was fun, it was nice to had returned to civilization. In my view point, the country side is nice to visit, but I would find myself bored and unhappy living out in the middle of nowhere after awhile. The trip had lasted till Tuesday night, but nothing really happened other than us going back to Rocklin, hanging out and resting from out long trip. I had flown home Tuesday night. This trip had was the last trip of my long and epic summer of adventures.
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