May 17-18
The next stop on our journey was a quick two day visit to Oregon. We knew our basic route North was going to take us through Oregon and we had already made plans to stay with a friend of Shaun's in Eugene. When we left the Redwoods and looked at the map we realized that it would only be a short detour to check out Crater Lake National Park, so we decided to go for it. As I drove, Shaun looked up lodging in the area on his smartphone. We found a little place called the Aspen Inn that got great reviews on Trip Advisor. When Shaun called to book the room he spoke with Heidi, the woman who manages the place, who let him know that Fort Klamath was truly in the middle of nowhere and that we would probably want to get dinner elsewhere since it was also the off season. Grateful for the advice, we stopped for a quick bite on our way.
When we arrived at the Aspen Inn we met Heidi, who was just as nice in person. While Shaun put the bags away she and I chatted for a bit. At one point I jokingly asked her if there were any bears locally and she just stared at me for a moment. "I can't believe you just asked me that!" she said. "I've run this place for twelve years now and although I've heard there were bears at the transfer station, I've never seen one. So there I was, washing the dishes this morning when a black bear runs right across my lawn!!". For those of you keeping score, the bears were definitely winning the mental match against the nervous humans at this point!
By the time we got all checked in it was late in the afternoon so we decided to do Crater Lake in the morning. The weather was beautiful, sunny and warm, and the Inn had a big swing in the yard. We poured ourselves a glass of the wine we had purchased in Sonoma, opened up the cooler and made a little cheese/fruit/cracker plate and settled in on the swing while the sun slowly set.
The next day we packed up and said goodbye to Heidi and then made our way up to Crater Lake National Park. We knew that Crater Lake was at altitude and that very little of the park would be open this time of year, so we planned to do a half day visit to the park and then continue up the coast to Eugene in the afternoon. The drive into the park was peaceful and very pretty. The farther up we went in elevation, the more snow we saw piled up on the sides of the road. When we finally made it up to the visitor center, the snow was halfway up the sides of the structure. In fact, you had to go around to a side entrance where they had built a "snow tunnel" to allow entrance into the building.
The Visitor Center was snowed in!
Inside the visitor center we spoke with one of the rangers who told us our best bet for a quick visit was to take a drive up the West Rim Drive to where it is closed at Discovery Point. From there she said we would see road barriers, but that they were only for cars. She said we could park the car there and then simply walk around the barriers. There would be a good walk that we could do that would give us a few viewpoints of the lake. We hadn't had a ranger steer us wrong yet, so we took her advice and headed up the Rim Drive.
The lake itself is just beautiful. It looks like it was created by a meteorite, but it was actually created 7700 years ago when a massive Volcano called Mount Mazama erupted and then eventually collapsed in on itself. The deep basin filled with rain and snowfall and eventually created Crater Lake, the deepest lake in the United States. After spending some quiet time looking out onto this beautiful expanse, we decided to take the hike the ranger had suggested, so we walked around the barriers and up the Rim Drive.
Beautiful Crater Lake
It was quite surreal actually. Even though it was a paved, two lane road, there was absolutely nobody else on it. And since this is a national park, there were miles of wilderness surrounding us on all sides, which made it virtually silent. All we could hear was the birds and the rustle of the wind through the trees. Of course, we occasionally shouted a bit in case there were bears around, but other than that it was quite peaceful!
It was strange having a whole National Park to ourselves for a while!
After walking for a while, we headed back down the drive and finally bumped into a few other people, including a nice Australian couple. We chatted with them for a bit about the places we visited in Australia and the places they visited in the states, and then said our goodbyes to Crater Lake. It was just a short little detour but we were both glad we had made the trip.
From Crater Lake it was only a few hours to Eugene, where we were staying with Josh and Renee. Josh was an old friend of Shaun's from the Boston Athletic Association, one of a group of three that had trained together for a few Boston Marathons. (The third member of their Trifecta was Simon, who we stayed with in Wellington, New Zealand.)
Josh had moved to Eugene with his fiancee Renee a few years earlier and he was now working at the University of Oregon. If you have any hard core runners in your life, you may know the University of Oregon as the former home of Steve Prefontaine, Bill Bowerman and many other elite runners and coaches. It is basically Mecca for runners. So of course, Hayward Field, the track at the University was our first stop!
The track at Hayward Field, also known as Tracktown, USA. The Olympic Trails were held here in June!
Josh met us at the track and we headed back to the house for the night. The first order of business was a run for Josh and Shaun, while Renee and I did a little dinner prep. Dinner that night was wonderful and I found my new favorite way to cook salmon!! Josh took thick pieces of salmon and placed them on top of grapefruit slices on the grill. Then he cooked them low and slow. The salmon came out perfect, juicy and tender with just a touch of citrus flavor from the grapefruit. It was a delicious dinner and a really fun night. When you are traveling like we have been, it is wonderful to get a little taste of home comfort, and that's definitely what we got from Josh and Renee!
Our fabulous hosts!
Alas, the next day it was time to move on again so we packed our bags and headed out of beautiful Eugene. We headed North, this time as far North and West as we would go on our journey before turning back to the East. We were headed to Olympic National Park in Washington State.
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