We start driving towards Lassen Volcanic National Park and Court distributes the donuts. From around the van there are all sorts of noises of enjoying their food and Court breaks off a piece of my apple fritter to feed it to me. A small piece of the apple comes out and she picks it up to eat it and very much enjoys it. I am able to convince her to take a bit and she loves it. I'm even able to get Abby to try it and she's a big fan as well. I mean, what's not to like? Fried dough, glaze, apple and cinnamon is a delicious combo and this one is pretty good. I typically compare fritters to what I'm used to from Florida and this one is pretty darn close and I am very pleased.
We drive through different farm landscapes and drive past an area where an internment camp used to be located. I share this with Gideon expecting to get a looking around but he just keeps in his phone playing BitLife. This whole time the horizon is still overly hazy like yesterday, likely from wild fires in the area. I'm a little sad that the fire must be that intense to continue to cloud our horizon and can't imagine what kind of damage must be happening. After a while we need gas and a bathroom so Court looks up a Chevron not too far along the path. As we pull in, it's pretty obvious that this town is down on its luck. I pull up to a pump and Court and Abby head out to go to the bathroom but I don't see where they go because I'm gathering trash. Gideon finally gets out and I tell him to go in and find the bathroom while I pump the gas. After a few seconds he comes back out and says that he can't find the bathroom. Now I'm worried about where Court and Abby went. I figure we can wait them out and then Gideon can go afterwards. About a minute later I see some motion out of the corner of my eye at the back corner of the lot and see Court and Abby coming out of a separate building. Apparently the bathroom is out there and since I'm almost done, I have Gideon wait for me to go in. This bathroom is a bit tough as well. There is no toilet paper, one roll of paper towels is in the sink, the toilet is a little messy and the sign about telling the station management if there is something wrong in there has clearly been attempted to be removed. We rush through what we need to do and use hand sanitizer instead of washing in the bathroom. We head in to the store to pick up some additional drinks for the road. There is a little prepared food area in the gas station and woman in here putting together a meal from it. This place is a hot mess.
After a bit longer of a drive we make it to the park. The first sign we see for the park is set back in the woods and we cannot find a place to get a picture with it so we grab one with a sign a little bit further in. Now, with Court's hip not being the best still wee decided to try a smaller trail that sounded interesting but we wanted some information from a ranger so, since there was no one behind me when I checked into the park, I asked the ranger how long the Sulfer Works trails are and if that was in and out or round trip. We got a rambling statement that it's a really cool place and that we should definitely stop there and that this other trail near there is a lot of work because of the altitude so don't do that unless you're ready. Okay??? We pull away as during this conversation, two additional people have pulled up. I guess we'll feel it out when we get there.
We drive in and this place is very pretty. It's yet another pine forest but this one has all sorts of volcanic stones and such strewn about it. We pull over at one of the first stops in what's called the devistation zone which is an area that was leveled by the eruptions that occurred from the volcano back in the 1914-1920 timeframe. You can just see large chunks of rock thrown about everywhere where the volcano just blew out across the countryside. At the next stop there's a very large rock, reportedly 300 tons, that was reportedly dragged to this spot from 5 miles up the mountain in an avalance that occurred after the initial explosions and was so hot that when people first got to it, it was still sizzling! We continue through the park and I am pleasently surprised how few people are actually here. Even the fuller stops still had plenty of parking and there was no need to be on top of people. The drive through the park is beautiful and calming. There are some nice meadows and at one point a deer is very close to us on the side of the road and Abby and Court are shooting tons of photos. To attempt to get the doe to look up at us Court makes a funny noise and this makes the deer start walking away. We drive along the side of the road and they are still getting pictures. The doe starts moving like she's panicked so we drive off to not stress her out more. We get to see some nice lakes as well where a lot of people are swimming or playing.
We finally make it to the Sulfer Works and can see a mudpot from the road. We park and walk out to the mudpot. The smell of sulfer is immediately strong and as we walk up the breeze is blowing the steam and smell from the area directly towards us. The mudpot is clearly very hot, boiling mud that' bubbling all over the place. We can see other vents where steam is coming up from the ground as well. As we walk around for other views we see a sign indicating that the ground is not stable outside of the sidewalk areas and that you could fall through and severly burn yourself if you walk outside of the approved path. The best part of this though is the picture version which shows a stick figure where the ground has fallen away underneath of him with a red lava-like thing underneath. We head to the visitor center for the standard souveniers and head out of the park.
We pull into the town where the Best Western we are staying in for the night is located and immediately know that we are going to have an interesting dinner tonight. Most of the eateries are closed what looks like permanently and those that aren't look pretty sketchy. We look around on Google and find a place in the next town over, Tantardino's. It has pizza and pasta and such which is all that really appears to be available at the local eateries for some reason. We show up and this place is hopping. Of course we should have expected that this would be a busy place considering there aren't a lot of options. We are told that if we can eat our dinner in an hour and a quarter then we can be seated, otherwise we need to come back at 8. We decide to eat as quickly as possible. The food is decent, probably better than what some of the other places would have provided judging from appearances at least. We wrap up quickly and head back to the hotel for the night.