Ontario, OR to Crater Lake National Park- 371 miles

July 13, 2012

We started this morning with the free breakfast that came with our hotel room. We were not expecting anything great, but it actually was pretty good! They had a make you own waffle station that the kids enjoyed, fruit, muffins, toast, etc. It worked well to get a good breakfast before we set off on our anticipated seven hour trip.

As we left Ontario, OR and headed for Crater Lake National Park we began a drive unlike the ones before it. Although we have definitely had long stretches of road where there was a lot of farmland
or open landscape, I had not really felt so far from civilization before! I definitely felt like if we had any car trouble or ran out of gas we were going to be waiting a long time for help because there were no gas stations or towns to be found for many miles at a stretch. The scenery was really interesting, though. Tall, brown mountains were all around with large cliffs everywhere and scrubby vegetation, similar to what I would expect to see near a beach. Every so often we would pass through a small town and then nothing again for quite some time.

Eventually we came up to Bend, OR which was this surprisingly large town after so many small towns and people less landscape. We went grocery shopping here, thinking (correctly) it would be our last opportunity before getting to Crater Lake. After we shopped we only had about an hour and a half to go and the scenery for the remainder of the drive was beautiful snow topped mountains.

We were excited when we finally arrived at Crater Lake National Forest. We entered through the North Gate and took the West Rim drive. I have to admit, I have never been so nervous riding in a car before. I do not have a fear of heights, however I do have fear of falling off the edge of a mountain in a mini-van full of my family from those heights. On this road there was about 2 inches of asphalt beyond the white line on the edge of the road, and then a sheer drop! Oh, and no guard rails. I honestly felt like I was going to throw up! As my heart was in my throat I began to doubt the wisdom of coming here, but then we stopped at the observation point and saw the lake for the first time. It was amazing! I could see why Joe had put this on his bucket list almost 20 years ago when he read about it in a book put out to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Life magazine.

We set up camp and then decided to take a hike that left straight from our campground called the Annie Creek Canyon trail. Our campsite overlooked the canyon and the trail went right behind our site. This was a moderate 1.7 mile trail that went down into a canyon and along a spring. It was a really pretty hike and Brady and the boys did really well. We even saw a deer they was grazing right on the other side of the spring.

After our hike we made dinner and a campfire. After dinner the boys and I went to a ranger talk at the amphitheater about the animals that lived in the area. It was really interesting and entertaining. (Joe stayed back at the site to tend to the fire). Brady fell asleep, though, so we had to lug him home and put him to bed. Shortly thereafter we all went to bed.