The Dude spent five days scrambling, fishing and camping in wilds of Montana. Many mountain goats visited his campsite:

We skeedaddled and left the goats to paw up the ground where we had peed the night before. Yes, they were licking every place we had peed, pawing up dirt, eating the dirt, ostensibly for the salt. They jockeyed for position and the dominant goats pushed the submissive goats out of the way. It was fascinating. There were a couple brave, little shavers who bulled in. Eventually, a big goat would nudge them in the arse and they would hop off all four feet straight into the air.

Calipidder and her hubby spent Fourth of July weekend in the volcano country of far northern California.

A quick aside about the area: Lava Beds National Monument is packed with lava tube caves (505 as of this visit), all originating from the activity on the Medicine Lake Shield Volcano. Shield volcanoes have low slopes and multiple vents, and don’t typically erupt in the classic Hollywood sense (a big kaboom from a vent at the summit). The caves in the area are all lava tubes. These form as lava slowly works its way out of a vent and down the slope. The outside cools quickly and hardens, leaving an insulating shell so that the lava inside stays liquid and keeps moving. When the eruption ends, the lava flows out of the hardened shell and leaves behind a lava tube cave. At Lava Beds NM, they have a developed ‘cave loop’ – a short drive where people can pull out and climb down developed ladders and trails to explore the caves of one flow. The caves along the cave loop are quite interesting and fun to explore, but it is also where 99% of the crowds spend their time. The Cave Loop isn’t the only place to find caves, however. A bit of pre-study and topo map knowledge will help anyone find some ‘wild’ caves to have to their own even on the busiest holiday weekend, some of them within spitting distance of developed areas.