Our RV Adventures

Jan having gotten up earlier as usual, this morning started at 8:30 for me, since we were leaving at 9 for our daytrip down to Crater Lake National Park.

But our first stop was at the park entrance at Big Jim’s Coffee Wagon, a coffee and pastry kiosk that’s open everyday from 6:30 to 10:30 am, and gets a lot of business from outside the RV park, as well as park residents. Jan had a Hazelnut Hot Chocolate and a breakfast sandwich, and I had a Snickerdoodle Latte and a bagel w/cream cheese. Both very, very good. We’ll go back.

Then we were on the road heading about 100 miles south to Lobert Junction where we would pick up SR 62.

Along the way, we saw Mt. Scott which is right next to Crater Lake, and blocks it from our view.

Right before we turned onto SR 62 we stopped for gas and a pitstop at the Crater Lake Junction Truck Stop, and then it was back on the road for the 35 mile trip up into the park.

We started out about 4000 feet, and by 4500 feet we were seeing snow.

And more snow at 5000 feet

And even more at 6000 feet.

Then we see this.  Oh, Boy!

But finally at about 7200 feet we pulled into Rim Village, and seeing a lot of people on top of a hill taking pictures, we decided to join them.

And this is what we saw! Be sure and click on this panoramic photo to see it full size. Be sure and use the slider bar at the bottom to see it all.

If ever a view was breathtaking.

Crater Lake is 6 miles across and 1949 feet deep, and from where we were standing on the rim, it’s 900 feet to the water.

This ‘lump’ is Wizard Island, formed from lava eruptions after the volcano Mount Mazama exploded in 5700 B.C., and then collapsed into the crater we have today.

Here’s an Internet photo showing it from a better angle.

And this Internet aerial view gives a better perspective of the entire crater.

The water in the crater, formed from snow melt over thousands of years, is some of the purest in the world, and really acts like a mirror.

Since it still goes down into the low 20’s here at night, you can see a sheen of ice around the edges of the lake.

And here’s my Sweetie, showing up the view.

While we were at Rim Village we checked out the gift shop and café. The first thing we notice were these ‘snow tunnel’ entrances leading out to the street.

And it’s really a long hallway leading into the building. It turns out that these are done this way so you can get into the building when there is 30 to 40 feet of snow covering up everything. Crater Lake gets a average of 44 feet (FEET!) of snow a year, and this way the snow plows can clear the entrance right along the edge of the road, so you can get inside the building.

Even the outside restrooms are done the same way.

A little after 1pm we drove about half a mile along the rim to the Crater Lake Lodge to have lunch.

Originally built somewhat shoddily in 1915, it had deteriorated to such an extent that in 1989 it was condemned, torn down, and rebuilt from scratch, with only the Great Hall being saved. And they did a beautiful job.

Jan and I had great Reuben Sandwiches in the dining room,

and then went outside to take in another great view of the lake from the lodge porch.

We even had a Steller’s Jay taking in the view with us.

All during the day, we kept bumping into this group of motorcyclists, who asked me to take their picture with their camera. So the last time I saw them I took a picture with mine.

If it had been a little later in the year, we could have taken the 31 mile loop drive around the crater. And we could have also come in the north entrance and saved ourselves about 100 miles. But the loop is still snowed in.

It takes 10 men working for 4 months starting in April to clear the loop. They can do about 1/4 mile a day to clear 30 feet of snow from a roadway 30 feet wide. That means they’re moving over 1 million cubic feet of snow a day. That’s over 25 million pounds. A DAY!

After getting our National Park Passport stamped, we headed back toward home, after having a great day.And then to top it off, after coming through the tiny town of Fort Klamath on SR62, we had probably our last view of Mt. Shasta, about 90 miles away. What a sight!

We got home about 6 pm, after a 9 hour trip of about 275 miles. A long, but really nice day.

Tomorrow, who knows?

But I know I’m sleeping later.

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Thought for the Day:

“Whether to shoot someone once is a moral, ethical, and legal question. How many times to shoot them, well, that is a tactical question.”

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First off, I have to pass on this hilarious email from our daughter Brandi concerning our grandson Landon’s weekend antics.

Had a great weekend. Landon is loving the pool. Now he leans WAYYY over in his floatie and dunks his head under the water. I think he is drinking the pool water!!

YUCK!

OH, also your grandson ate most of a Locust yesterday!!

GROSSSS!

I am gagging just thinking about it.

Apparently, Kitty (their 105 lb. Black Lab) likes to kill and eat them, and she must have brought one in to snack on at a later time.

What’s worse is it happened on MY watch right in front of me. I had just vacuumed and was folding some clothes in the living room and he was by the fireplace playing with something, being very quiet.

Well, I am learning that when it’s quiet it usually means he is up to NO good!! When I went to inspect what he was up to I found him chewing and sucking on the remainders of a green slimy bug.

YACK YACK!

I immediately took him to the kitchen and tried to wipe out his mouth (to no avail) and sanitize him as much as possible.

I found a pair of wings, YACK BARF! clenched in his hand and his tongue was green and covered in some slimy stuff.

GAG BARF!

I think I may have even seen a leg in there.

GAG!!! 

He did not seem bothered by it, but was more than happy to drink some juice and eat some banana puffs. He soon after took a nap.

While he was asleep in my arms I could make out the other half of the bugs body still by the fireplace. When Lowell got up from his nap I made him go inspect it and make sure our son was going to be OK.

He said it was a Locust and looked it up online. Apparently, in some countries it is a yummy snack so it looks like I need to chalk this up to the first of many yucky things my son will put in his mouth.

Love ya,

Brandi

FYI  Locust is just another name for grasshopper.

Hmmm! Looks tasty.

Getting back to this morning, I got up about 10 and did the usual coffee and muffins thing. The last of them as it turns so we’ll need to stock up again soon.

After doing client Internet stuff, I worked outside cleaning off the bugs from our front cap that we’d picked up on our trip here from Weed. They look like some kind of flying ant, but a little Awesome and a microfiber cloth, and a final rinse with the hose, took care of them.

We had decided that today was a stay-at-home day, so Jan put a batch of her famous Tuscany Chicken in the crockpot and whipped up a pan of Tastefully Simple’s Nana’s Apple Cake Mix using fresh apples, that she got from Jeanne Sparks at Nick Russell’s Gypsy Journal Rally in Yuma this past March. We tried a number of the Tastefully Simple products and they’ve all been good. Check’em out.

After being taunted all afternoon by the delicious smells, we finally ate about 5 pm, and it was even better tasting than smelling.

Tomorrow Jan and I going make the 130 mile trip down to Crater Lake National Park. The trip would only be 85 miles, except for the fact the the north entrance is still snowed in. So we’ll have to drive 100 miles south on US 97, then come back up 30 miles into the park.

Right now the temps are in the low 50’s in the daytime, and in the mid 20’s at night. Here’s a webcam shot of what it looked like this morning at the Park Headquarters.

And yes, those are 20 foot snow drifts surrounding the parking lot.

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Thought for the Day:

“What Good Fortune for the State that people do not think!” – Adolph Hitler – 1933

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