Crater Lake NP

We left Klamath Falls at 10:30 am after stopping by Safeway to buy food. I’d like to get an earlier start, but it’s difficult with Ixchel especially since she’s still sick (cough and runny nose), we let her sleep all she wants. We wish she would sleep more in the car but she only takes a nap about an hour long. Soon after we left, of course, Ixchel had to go “poofy.” But with no bathroom in sight we had to stop by the side of the road and take her behind some bushes. We have to make frequent stops with Ixchel either to do “poofy” or “pichy” or because she’s just tired of being in the car and needs a break. After about an hour we reached Crater Lake National Park. We were first welcomed by the sight of a deep canyon (Alice canyon) with a river running down the middle. But the main attraction is the huge deep blue lake in the middle of an extinct crater. It’s truly an incredible sight, to stand at the rim of a huge volcano and to see a caldera filled with water and an island in the middle. After a pic-nic lunch with a view of the lake and a bit of hiking, we said goodbye to Crater Lake and headed north. We wanted to camp, but it being Friday and close to six pm we were not sure if we could find a spot. We pulled into La Pines camprogund just south of Bend, Ore. We were behind a truck and hoping they wouldn’t take the last stop. As we had feared, the camp was full but the people in the truck we following were there to cancel their reservations, so we were able and lucky to take their spot. The campsite was nice and it even had an electric outlet where I was able to recharge some of the many batteries I have (camera, camcorder, laptop, cell phone). Before going to bed we went to see a talk on star gazing led by park staff. We learned that central and eastern Oregon have very little light pollution (very dark skies) because the big population centers in the state are located more towards the coast. Ixchel was one of the most enthusiastic attendees, jumping up and down and exclaiming “wow!” at the slides of planets, comets, etc. from the nearby observatory. At one slide (a crater on Mars), Stephanie commented to Ixchel, “That one looks like a big eye.” Ixchel responded, “That’s not a big eye. That’s a volcano that exploded and left a big hole.” She got her volcano geology down at Crater Lake and Mount Lassen obviously (in spite of the fact that Mr. Physical Geography – her father – responded to her question of why the volcano exploded with “because it got angry”).