Ben to University of Oregon

Yesterday we dropped Ben off at the University of Oregon (in Eugene). I can't believe my son is now a college man!
He got off to an memorable start. There were two campus-wide power outages his first evening. Then, at 11 pm when he was ready to go to bed, he found that his dorm room key wouldn't work. A maintenance man showed up about 1 am with some lock lubricant that solved the problem. This morning Ben got up at 8 am to hit the gym - only to find out that they don't open until 10 am (but will be 8am once school starts next week). So he tried the track - but they were closed, too. Good luck, Ben!

Lassen Volcanic National Park

I'm a little slow publishing some of my summer adventures. This was my trip to Lassen Volcanic National Park. I hiked up Brokeoff Mountain and Lassen Peak, and enjoyed a 3-day, 2-night backpack trip to a series of lakes. Lassen is no Yellowstone or Yosemite, but is a nice place nonetheless, with some beautiful views of more mountain ridges than I've ever seen.

I've now visited all of the national parks in California (if you consider the Channel Islands visitor center as actually a part of that park)!