Leslie and David's Wanderings: 15 September 2019 California Twofer

Leslie woke up feeling better this morning. We headed out for northeastern California to two national monuments. On the way, we drove through Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument on Oregon State road 66, which is a BLM run monument. We did not stop at the visitor center, so are not claiming this monument in our destinations. We dropped down into California on 139 to Tule Lake, California. We got our first glimpses of snow-covered Mount Shasta in the distance. California is our 21st state.

Tule Lake was the location of another of the War Relocation Centers for Japanese citizens and Japanese Americans. Part of the WWII Valor in the Pacific National Monument, Tule Lake houses the temporary Visitor Center in the Fair Ground Museum. Unfortunately, the visitor center is only open from Memorial Day to Labor Day. So it was closed, but we peeked in the widows and stopped at the site of the former Segregation Center. Most of the buildings are gone from the relocation/segregation center, sold to local farmers after the war, and only a few survive in the former POW camp.

Japanese citizens were prevented from becoming American Citizens for 17 years prior to the outbreak of WWII, but their children, born in the USA, were US Citizens. The Tule Lake Relocation Center was opened in 1942. Built very similar to the other relocation camps (IE shoddy), it was originally built to house 12,000 “Internees” (note they did not meet the legal definition), it was expanded and eventually held almost 19,000. In 1943, the US Government issued a questionnaire to the approximately 120,000 Japanese, German, and Italian “internees” in an attempt to determine their “loyalty”. Japanese citizens, and Japanese American “internees” that were determined to be disloyal, based on their answers to the questionnaire, were all sent to Tule Lake from the other 9 Relocation Centers, since Tule Lake had the highest number of “disloyal” internees. Tule Lake was renamed the Tule Lake Segregation Center and was taken over by the Army. More guard towers were built and the produce fields were enclosed with more guard towers and barbwire. When the Tule Lake “internees” refused to bring in the crops, the command brought in several hundred “internees” from other camps to bring in the crops. These “internees” were housed in a former CCC camp near Tule Lake. In 1944, local farmers needed additional help to bring in the crops of Potatoes and Onions. So the former CCC camp was converted into a POW camp by 135 Italian POWs and eventually house 800 German POWs who worked in the local farm fields. Many of the POWs attempted to stay in the area after the war but were not lucky enough to draw one of the lottery numbers for some of the local land.

We continued on to the southern entrance to Lava Beds National Monument. We stopped at the Visitor center to collect our 49^thand 50^th(We were able to get a Tule Lake stamp as well) Passport Stamps,watched the park movie, and looked through the gift store and exhibits. Lava Beds National Monument sits on top of the Medicine Lake shield volcano. The largest volcano in the cascades range. The area is composed of multiple layers of lava flows. There are over 500 lava tubes in the park. We worked our way through three of the Lava Tubes that are open to the public. The first was Mushpot Cave, which is the only lighted cave in the park. Leslie wasn’t too impressed until David told her that she was wearing her sunglasses. We had to duck and duck walk through sections, but it was a good example of a lava cave. We then drove the cave loop and hiked from the lower Sentinel cave entrance to the upper Sentinel cave entrance using just our flashlights. Leslie must add that a pencil light flash light is not a life-saving device!!!! Do not look back because it is totally black. You can only hope someone closed the closet door and the monsters have no access. The trail guide said there was a “smooth” trail through these caves, but their definition of smooth leaves something to be desired. However, compared to the piles of jagged rocks around us, it was definitely easier. Being in a completely dark cave with only the light of our flashlights to navigate with was an experience. We then backtracked to Valentine Cave, which is different from the other lava tubs since it was formed by fast flowing lava, so the walls and ceiling are smooth and the floor was flowstone. It was a fascinating tunnel to explore, again with only our flashlights to lead the way.

We then drove to the northern section of the park where the Modok Indians held off the US Arm in 1879 for 6 months. We explored a couple of the battle areas before heading out the northeast exit. About 5 miles outside the northeast exit is another portion of the park where Tule Lake used to wash up against a lava dome island. The lake as been drained. Around the bottom of this lava island are over 5000 petroglyphs from the Modok Indians. This is one of the highest concentrations of petroglyphs in the US. They were not as distinctive as many of the other petroglyhs we have seen over the last 8 months, but the sheer quantity was impressive. After walking the length of the cliff, we headed back to Phoenix. As we came into the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument we ran into the storm front coming in from the west. Nothing like wet, slick, dark, twisty, windy, narrow roads to get your attention.