Day 18 - Redwoods and Crater Lake

Have you ever stood inside a tree?  John and I did, at the same time, with room to spare.  We headed out pretty early, and finished driving the Avenue of the Giants.  One of the groves was the Mahan Grove.  My daughter married a Mahan so I took particular interest in this one.  I headed out to get a quick picture of the plaque dedicated to the Mahans.  I thought I would run get the picture while John waited for me in the car.  I kept going and going – finally I turned back without the picture because I didn’t want him to wait too long for me.  A short while later I ran into him on the trail.  Yay for John, he is awesome.  We went back to look for the plaque and it was only a short distance from where I had turned around.  The Mahans were instrumental in saving the Redwoods here.

The Redwoods are really cool.  There are some you can drive through and some that homes are made from.  We didn’t do any of that stuff, just enjoyed the ones growing in entire groves.  It makes me feel the immensity of the universe to stand in a grove of these giant trees.  I had to crane my neck to look straight up to see the tree tops.  Some are over 370 feet tall.  That’s more than a football field.

Onward in search of McDonald’s.  Who would have thought it would be so hard to find McDonald’s in the world!?  We stopped in Eureka for breakfast at McDonald’s finally.  The people there were from a world I had not experienced.  I think they were loggers.

We drove a long time.  We did stop at the Redwood National Forest and get a passport stamp, watch the movie. We stopped at the Jedadiah National Forest and had lunch.  A couple a little younger than us invited us to share their table.  We enjoyed talking to them over lunch.  They had become engaged 2 days before and you could tell they were dying to tell people.  It was very sweet.  John jokingly said “Don’t get any ideas.”  I hadn’t.

I keep hearing John say “Quit nagging!” while we are in the car.  Well, he’s not talking to me, he’s talking to his car.  Ha!  It dings at him when his seatbelt isn’t on.

Oregon has a speed limit of 55 on the freeway most of the time.  Their signs are pretty different.  They say SPEED 55.  We had a few sprinkles of rain but not enough to even turn on the wipers.  We turned on this road on the way to Highway 99, with a SPEED 45 sign.  John turned on his radar detector – 30 seconds too late.  Yep, he got nailed, pulled over and adrenaline rushed.  I was so happy when he got off with just a warning. 

We arrived at Crater Lake about 4:00.  We went to the visitor center and watched the movie.  Ranger Boy had jokes!  He was fun. I had been wondering why John wanted to drive that far to see some ol’ Lake.  Okay, it was formed when a volcano blew the top of the mountain off and snow and rain filled up the hole.  And it is supposed to be some cool color of blue.  Okay.  Then I caught my first glimpse of the lake.  “Stop the CAR!”  I had to get out right then and go see.  He made me wait until we were actually off the road to get out.  We hiked up a short distance to the rim. 

The sun was behind clouds, and it was windy, so the conditions were not ideal, but that is the most blue/purple/indigo lake I have ever seen.  It was such a deep color.  There were no reflections in the water because of the wind, and John said the color gets even deeper when the sun is shining.  We went to 3 viewpoints, and made one unscheduled stop.  I thought he needed to use the bathroom or something, but when I got out of the car, he held up a snowball!  He threw it (gently) at me, and I got to stand in snow and throw a snowball at him too!  What fun!  It was 85 degrees outside, and we were in snow.

We went to our campsite and set up camp, then ate Fajitas.  Yum.  John built a fire while I did dishes.  Then we went to the Ranger talk on Pikas.  Apparently these precious little mammals are related to bunnies.  I know where they got Pikachu from now.  They are so cute!

Next morning we did get to see Crater Lake with the reflections and the deepness of the blue was just starting as we left.  We enjoyed some chipmunks who were trying for a handout. 

Next, Idaho.