Concerts and Caving

Though the weather wasn't great- cold and rainy, we had an awesome weekend! We got to see two of our (mostly my) favorite bands in concert, and they were terrific! Saturday night we went to Death Cab for Cutie at the ampitheatre. We lugged the tarp, the blankets, the gloves, the umbrellas, EVERYTHING and prayed for a break in the weather, which we luckily got. The two opening acts, which normally you come late to miss, we came in time to see, and I am glad we did because they were awesome. They were called, Mates of State, and the other was The Decemberists. You probably haven't heard of them, but they were terrific and I would recommend looking them up on iTunes! DCFC was awesome- they put on a great show and they always sound amazing! They played a lot from their new album, but also lots from past one's too so that was nice. I would go see them again, and again- they are terrific live. Sunday night we did it ALL over again, but luckily it wasn't as wet. Unlike Saturday night, I wish we had come later because the opening acts left a lot to be desired, at least the first band, The Breeders. The second band, The National, I had heard of before and they were pretty decent, but Modest Mouse rocked, literally! It was such a different crowd than the night before. Lots of crowd surfing in the pit, which Doug tells me is "SOOOO AWESOME!" Since we are old fogies we stayed in the sitting section on the hill, but by the end of the night everyone was on their feet, it was so fun! We got our fair share of loud music, junk food, and even a wiff or two of the Mary-Jane (Hey, this IS oregon!). Doug and I decided we are going to be in the front row of the pit for the next show we go to, which is Beck in August. It's going to be insane, but we can't pass up the chance to be young and stupid while we're still young!
Doug and I killing time between acts

The concert

Today we went south of town to the Newberry National Volcano Monument. It was super cool! We saw lots of lava rock and took a walk through the trails in the lava beds. Then we went caving in the longest Lava Tube in Oregon, it was about a mile long, and was created from the lava during the eruption looooong ago. It was really fun- we didn't see any bats, but lots of neat rock formations and some ice stalagmites. I tried to take some pictures, but it was too dark for most of them to turn out. We had a fun time exploring and definitely got in our fair share of walking for the day!!
Doug in the Lava Beds

The Lava Beds


This lava formed a pumice rock


It was neat to see the different formations from the lava


The mouth of the cave

You may not be able to see this well enough but there were some neat Ice Stalagmites right in the start of the cave


Cute chipmunks everywhere! I was in heaven:0)


Hope you all had an enjoyable holiday weekend!