Crater Lake- The Journey

The light fog made the sun rays just beautiful. There are lots of pretty river outlooks - and we stopped at most of them.
Because of the winding road, we were constantly in and out of the sun and it made for a beautiful drive.
Diversity - The desert, trees and a snow covered mountain. Central Oregon is known for this.
This mountain was miles and miles away and it was so beautiful.
We drove with the top down so we could enjoy the scenery. There is a lot of looking up when traveling in the mountains. We kept the heater going and at one point it was almost full blast! the temperature wasn't as cold as it looks. It was about 60 degrees.


We can only post five pictures at a time on the blog so I thought I’d separate the lake from the journey there. Because of the altitude at the lake (about 7800 feet) it freezes virtually every night all year. The northern road sometimes gets closed mid September for the winter. We were very fortunate to be there in mid October and have a sixty degree day and all the roads open (and no rain). There was snow that had been plowed off the road and ice on the road in a few areas. The drive was just amazing. We have a wonderful National Park system. A tremendous amount of work has been done so we can see this beautiful scenery. The roads and outlooks are great. Something we learned from our boat pilot in Astoria, OR is that distance is deceiving on water. Crater Lake is 5 by 6 miles and while it is big, it doesn’t look that big. If you get in the Oregon area, you have to check out this area. We plan on resting today. Tomorrow we will head west for the Pacific Coast and then travel south to California. Last night we went out to eat with our new friends here in the campground and they gave us lots of good tips on what to see. I am looking forward to seeing the huge redwood trees. We've never been to California.