Thursday, September 6
Today started with some exciting outdoorsmanship. After putting the fire out with water last night, the boys were able to dig up some embers this morning and blow some life into the fire. I was surprised they could do it given the amount of water we used to put it out the night before. Before I knew it, they had a blazing fire going. This was pure excitement for the older boys, almost like being an Indian. After a relaxing morning we headed to Crater Lake National Park. The lake is by far the most pristine lake I have ever seen. The water clarity is better than any lake in the world – meaning that you can see down to a depth of 140 feet when the sun is at the right angle. No other lake can achieve that level of clarity. In fact moss has been observed to grow at depths of 500 feet. The total depth is 1,950 feet making it the 7th deepest lake in the world (the deepest in the US). They say that the lake water is very pure. It is only fed by rainwater and snow melt. There are no rivers running into it and no rivers that drain it. It is literally a deep bowl full of water at a very high elevation. Thanks to a volcano that caved in, the lake is isolated from everything else. It wasn’t even discovered until 1853 by the white man. The Indians had avoided telling us about it and kept it a secret. Indians used to come to the lake to drink the water and they claimed it had some special healing properties. Probably because it was cleaner than their normal drinking water. After taking in the views from some of the overlooks we went to listen to a ranger talk. The boys completed their Junior Ranger books and received their badges. We closed the evening by taking a short 2 mile bike ride to some rock formations caused by the volcano. They literally looked like pillars of ash-something I hadn’t seen before. The only thing we didn’t do is hike down to the lake surface. Because the lake is in a bowl, the only access to the water is by hiking down about 1 mile worth of trails. The elevation change is pretty tough so the mile hike back would have been more than the kids could have done. I’m certainly glad we didn’t leave this park out, it is well worth the visit. For those of you seeking comforts, they have a lodge here inside the park and other lodges here at Diamond lake. A vacation of these parts could include a visit to Olympic National Park, Crater Lake NP, Mt. Rainer NP, Mt. Hood, Mt. St. Helens, and various other state parks that capture the beauty of the northwest.
Wednesday, September 5
After looking at our calendar and our new desire to get back home by October 20, we streamlined our trip a bit and cut out a short trek into Colorado to see Mesa Verde and a trek to see Big Bend National Park in Texas. This meant that we needed to stay in Portland only 1 night and get moving. So today we drove 4.5 hours to Diamond Lake, just outside of Crater Lake. We decided to break up the trip in two legs and took a 1 hour break at a park in Eugene. Of course I tried to let the GPS pick the closest park but they were doing road work which prevented our ability to get to that park. However, the second closest park was easy to get to and perfect for the kids. Tonight the kids enjoyed making a fire and seeing a movie. Every two or three weeks we splurge and rent a kids movie from the RV park
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