We didn't do much research for Crater Lake before we went there. We knew it was a national Park and that National Parks can get really crowded, so we made plans to get there as early as possible. We also got a hotel in a small town about a half hour away from Crater Lake so that we could have the whole day there. If we could go back in time, we would have done things a little differently that day. But we still really enjoyed crater lake and the weather couldn't have been more perfect.
We entered Crater Lake National Park through the north entrance. The roads were not well marked and GPS lead us to a turn off that was a dirt road with hardly enough room for one car to fit through the trees. We did not take that road, but turned around and went on the turn off that was paved and looked a bit more traveled. We were happy to find this sign along that road.
Crater Lake has a road that goes all the way around the rim. Because it was spring, half of the rim drive was closed(still covered in snow). We knew nothing about Crater Lake before we got there, except that it is the deepest lake in North America. That day, we learned that crater lake is actually a collapsed volcano. Witches island, visible in most of our pictures is still an active volcano that could erupt. There is another volcano tip under the water that could also erupt. So the lake changes throughout time. Crater Lake also has no water source. All of it's water comes from rain and snow melt. That is why it is so blue. We decided that this means there are no fish in the lake. Our first view of the lake was indescribable. The like was as smooth as glass and the reflections of the opposite rim and bright blue sky were amazing. Alyssa was scared to go near the lake because of her fear of deep water and heights so she stayed in the car for this first stop.
We had bought lunch from subway that morning and had a little picnic on the rim. The bugs were annoying, most of all to Alyssa and Tyler, but the view was amazing. After lunch, we took this picture. The water got a little more choppy as the day went on. so it wasn't nearly as clear as the first shot.
We walked along the rim trail for a bit, but decided not to try the moderate hike that would take us up to a higher viewpoint. Here is another photo bomb from the trip. :)
This was the end of the paved path and the start of the trail to the hike. We stayed here for about 10 minutes and chased a lady away who was sitting near here playing her guitar. We saw her in another spot playing on the way back.
One the walk back, Danny went ahead with Ashley and I walked with Alyssa and the boys. At one point, a beetle landed on Tyler's shoulder. It was pretty big, maybe an inch long, and as soon as he saw it, he went ballistic. He was running in circles screaming "There's a bug on me!!" over and over. I found a piece of a pine tree branch, with the needles still on it to use as a little broom, chased Tyler down and brushed it off of him. We had a good laugh about it and continued back to our car. About 5 minutes into the drive, Tyler says "I feel like I still have the bug on me." We laughed about it, but had Alyssa check to make sure he was bug free. When she lifted up the back of his shirt, she went ballistic yelling "Stop the car!" We thought she was messing with us, but quickly decided to take her seriously when we saw the tears in her eyes. Danny pulled over, opened the back door, and removed the beetle from Tyler and the car. We had a good laugh about it afterwards, even though it was not funny to Tyler at the time.
Because half of the rim drive was closed, we ended up finishing at Crater lake in the early afternoon. We pulled up to our hotel around 2:30 with hopes that our room was ready. It was not. They said they needed about an hour. So Danny found a Dairy Queen and we went to get some ice cream. The dining room was not open, though, so we stood in the 100 degree heat in the parking lot to eat the ice cream. It was annoying! We drove around the town a bit and then headed back to the hotel around 3:30. The room was still not ready. Danny had booked a suite with more space and the hotel only had 4 rooms like that. So we unloaded our stuff and sat with it in the air conditioned lobby to pressure them a bit. Alyssa was so embarrassed. They did offer us complimentary drinks(water bottles, Gatorade, Naked brand smoothies, juices, etc.) We finally got up to our room around 4. I took Alyssa to the tennis courts and Danny took the kids swimming. Alyssa and I grabbed dinner at a waffle house(kind of like waffle love, but with even more choices) on the way back to the hotel. There was some excitement in the restaurant while we waited for our food with an irate and probably drunk customer mouthing off to the only waitress in the restaurant that night. Another customer chased the guy out challenging him to a fight. There were many 4 letter words spoken in the exchange. Alyssa and I were happy to get our food and get out of there. Needless to say, we were not impressed with Klamath Falls, OR.
We decided to drive all the way home the next day. Originally, we were going to split the drive between 2 days, but most of us just wanted to get home and not have to sleep in a hotel one more night. It was about a 10 hour drive. Amazingly, we hit our first rainfall of the trip about an hour from home. We drove right through the town we had picked out for lunch, without seeing any place worth stopping. So we had a late lunch in the next town, 40 minutes down the road and ended up eating pizza in a gas station restaurant. But the owner told us we didn't have to wear masks, so that was a plus. The pizza wasn't bad for a gas station. The drive was long and hard on all of us and we were so happy to pull into our driveway around 9 that night and sleep in our own beds.
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