As I drove out of the desert and climbed into the mountains, it felt like a dream. It felt more like home. I decided to work for a day or two and then head over to the Lava Beds National Monument, but the weather and a realization about shoes made me decide that I would return to this national monument in the future.
I spent a couple of days working, and the weather deteriorated almost on an hourly basis.
The caves formed by the lava beds contain bats. Because of the fungal infections decimating those populations, you should never go into two different cave systems with the same pair of shoes. I couldn’t remember which shoes I had worn into Carlsbad Caverns.
That may not have made an enormous difference because wandering around Lava Beds National Monument in the pouring rain didn’t appeal to me much.
So I decided to go ahead and continue pressing north toward Washington and come back another day.
On a positive note, the grocery store I stopped in before I came here had a limited hot sauce that found its way into my refrigerator
