Once we reached Shasta, we wandered around and enjoyed their Fourth of July parade.  This was one of several military vehicles that made their way down the parade route.

Andra and I walked over to a nearby school to relax and wait for the train.  I snapped this picture of Mt Shasta as Andra looked for hikers with the binoculars.  We eventually spotted four hikers making their way down the snow covered mountain.

Shasta is a dormant volcano that stands 14,162 ft tall.  Shasta has erupted every 250 to 300 years in the last few thousand years.   The last eruption was believed to have happened in 1786.  The chart below shows how often mountains in the Cascade range have erupted over the last 4,000 years.

This is Black Butte 6325 feet.  Black Butte formed at about the same time as Shastina, the "other" peak of Mount Shasta, about 9500 years ago. Black Butte is a "cluster of dacite plug domes" (Harris, 1994). Plug domes are a special type of volcano with lava so thick and stiff it doesn't form a lava flow.   Rather, the lava cools into angular blocks after it is slowly squeezed out of the vents. These rocks did not flow down the slope as lava, they rolled down the slope, after they cooled, forming the steep, rocky sides of Black Butte.  

All in all we had a very relaxing weekend together.  We enjoyed the scenery and took an easy pace.  Andra enjoyed her surprise train trip (even though we were robbed), and we got to watch the fireworks displays of many different towns as we drove back to Sacramento.  We even got to see a natural fireworks display as a thunderstorm hit the I-5 corridor.

Until our next adventure...

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