We slept in a little later this morning; almost until 7:00.  Ate our fruit and yoghurt that we had gotten at the market yesterday.  Then off to Lave Beds.  Through very rural Oregon...lots of Trump flags and signs and Don’t Tread on Me flags.  We drove past the Beauty Corral, which I remember from our last trip.  I wanted to take a photo of it on the way back-because I think Beauty Corral is such an odd name for a salon.  But didn’t get the photo on the way back due to traffic.  Anyway, we continued down the road.  Stopped at the Tule Lake Wildlife Preserve m(hunting hours are limited to before 3 pm or something like that).  There were a lot of water fowl on the lake and red winged blackbirds and other birds in the grasses.  Walked out to the lake shore on their little plastic boardwalk trail to to where there was a viewing blind on the edge of the water. But the place was over run with bugs, so many swarming that you are afraid to breathe.  Ug.  Didn't stay out there more than a minute and then back to the car.

Arrived at Lava Beds around 10 or so.  We ventured into the Merrill Cave first; it was an ice cave when we first visited in the 90s but not anymore.  It was still much, much cooler down there- almost like an air conditioned theatre.   Then back up to the surface and the Visitor’s Centre for maps and such.  We did the cave loop and stopped at the Lower Sentinel cave and did the 1 km hike through and came out at Upper Sentinel and then walked back to the car. 

We went to the little campground and found a picnic table in the shade to have a little snack.  We had stayed in the campground back in the 90s; we were much more agile then.  Harder to navigate through some of the lava tubes. 

We next went to Skull Cave and that was a huge cavern entrance and very cool- like all the caves we visited today, which were at temperatures I would guess at 65 degrees F while it was 95 at the surface. 

By that time, we were getting tired of the climbs up and down stairs and ladders to explore the caves.  We stopped at Petroglyph Point which is nearby and saw some very cool Modoc petroglyphs.  The area was a shallow lake at one time, and the Modoc would come and carve their images on the cliffside.  The cliff was also covered with hundreds of swallow nests or some sort of birds' nest.

We drove back to Klamath Falls and stopped at Klamath Basin Brewing for a late lunch/early dinner.  Good burgers with great fries that were curled slices of potatoes and also some fab onion rings (and IPAs too of course).

Then back to the hotel where Jerry beat me in a game of gin rummy.  Kickin' it tonight...