24th birthday

Yes, it is true. This past week I turned 24 which means I am almost at the quarter century mark! Where have the last 5 years of my life gone? They have passed really fast and I have lived in so many different places and done so many things! For example I have lived in Woodburn, Corvallis, Indiana, and California. That is a lot of moving for 5 years.

I went to work on my birthday because it was a Friday and then that night I made a cake for myself for the party which would be happening the next day at a friends house. I made a horse cake and it was really cute. I was quite happy with my handiwork. (I will have to put a picture up later when I get them downloaded.) On Saturday i got up really early and went to Brett's house. He made me breakfast and then we headed out to Lava Beds National Monument. I got to chose where we would go for my birthday and this seemed like a really fun idea.

The Lava Beds are near Tulelake which is south of Klamath Falls so we drove for 2 hours to get there. The park is really spectacular. It has a high desert climate with Lava formations all over the place. We explored some Chimneys that formed and left 50 ft+ holes in the ground. We also went into several caves which are lavatubes that formed thousands of years ago. The first one we went into was a bit scary because we had trouble seeing. Our headlamps were dimmer than we expected. In the caves you travel down anywhere from 500' to 1500' either by a ladder, steps, or a gradual slope of the floor. After that first one we went to the visitor center in order to borrow some flashlights. They let visitors use them for free. The best cave we went into was a figure 8 shape. It had several passage options that you could explore. It also had a big room that has gold colored bacteria growing on the walls. In several of the caves we had to stoop but they didn't get any smaller than about 4 feet. The insides of the caves didn't have stalactites but instead had features like "lavacicles" and icefloors. It was completely dark once you got far enough inside the cave. Wow- it is like nothing that you have ever experienced. We turned off our lights and you can't tell if your eyes are closed or not. Even the darkest of nights isn't this dark because at least you have some starlight. Needless to say we made it out OK and had a great day. Later we had tri-tip and cake at the friends house, and then we ended up dancing some and playing cards. What a good birthday, I had two fun celebrations!