Tomorrow morning we head south to visit a new park for us, Channel Islands National Park. The islands are off of Santa Barbara and the photos are gorgeous, so we’re very excited to explore this park. We are also avid birders (our friends call us bird nerds, and since it’s pretty much true, we’ll go with it), so we’re really hoping to see an island scrub jay there which is endemic to Santa Cruz island. Endemic, in case you have to ask like I just did, means native. Apparently this bird is only found there and has never been found anywhere else. Kinda crazy. Hope we see one! Jeff and his backpacking buddy Marv will do their 10th annual backpack/hike on Santa Cruz island for three nights and hope to see the peak of the Perseid meteor shower on Sunday, August 12th. I’m planning to visit Santa Cruz on Sunday during the day then plan to go whale watching around the islands and do some photographing. I’m also planning to watch the Perseids, but from up in the mountains in Santa Paula where I’ll be camping with my friend Karen. We are really looking forward to exploring our 38th national park.

On our return to Oregon we’ll stop in Lassen Volcanic National Park, one we’ve been to before. Lassen is not a very well-known park, but it’s fantabulous. Many people we met last year who live less than two hours from the park have never visited, and most of our friends hadn’t heard of it, either, so we’re planning to do a series of blog entries to introduce it to you. It’s an amazingly beautiful park, and we hope you’ll be inspired to visit it after you read our entries and see our photos.

Below is a little gallery of photos from a previous trip to Lassen to whet your appetite. Talk to you from the road!

Enjoy your week or your weekend!