Day 28

I work in the morning while kids leisurely wake up. It’s 44 degrees outside in the morning but rather quickly warms up to around 80 in a couple of hours. With that, Sol takes girls to explore the local rivers.

They are lucky and find a swimming hole where you could jump in from the high rocks. They do that for couple of hours while I have couple of meetings on the side of the road. Hearing their stories later I am glad I was not around to witness their heroic escapades.

After my work day we make a short drive to the Crater Lake State Park. Our collective breaths are immediately taken away by a majestic beauty of it.

The lake is situated in the ancient volcano crater that blew off the top of the mount Mazama 7,700 years ago. As it cooled, the water from melted snow
and rain collected in the crater forming a lake that is little under 2,000 feet wide and as many feet deep.

The water is 60 degrees and is so clear that you can see through to the bottom as it gets to be impossible blue in the deepest part.

Our plan was to initially just drive around the rim of the crater (at about 2,000 feet elevation) and visit a few pull outs but, once there, we understand that we must go down to water.

We drive over to the the trail head of Cleetwood Cove, the only trail that descends to the lake shore from 700 feet elevation. We put our hiking boots on and hike couple of miles down pretty strenuous switchback trail covered in white volcanic dust.

Once we are down, we sit by the water taking in the view and studying crow fish that’s crawling on the bottom of this crystal clear lake.
Some people do jump in the lake but the water is cold. Tamara is considering a swim and even takes her shirt off but does not go beyond washing some of volcanic dust off her feet.

Sasha announces from the nearby rock that she will supply the snack for us. From her backpack she produces a half gallon (!) jar of Salsa, two bowls
and a bag of tortilla chips. This 40 pound child hiked a half gallon salsa jar down a mile long steep descent trail because she wanted a snack at the bottom.

We snack and enjoy the view some more but soon must go up the steep switchbacks to the trail head as pup is waiting. Sir dad’s’a’lot has to hike the salsa up.

We are all pretty winded at the top but kids hoofed it up with almost no complaints. We are happy we had the experience but there is no way we are making it to Boise, ID tonight, which would be our last stop before reaching Yellow Stone.

We drive as far as we can, cook dinner at the gas station, and pull into the rest stop somewhere still in Oregon.

We park and are in bed before we realize that we parked next to a pretty loud tractor trailer. Sol runs out to move us but we stay in beds. It is a pretty interesting feeling to lay in bed while Trailer Swift is being moved around. Not being able to see out the window sure adds to the feeling. Suddenly, I am joined on the bed by a completely bamboozled dog who just had the floor he was sleeping on move away from under him. He jumps up looking for some comfort and settles with his face buried in my side.

The next day will be our longest drive yet as we have to cross entire state of Idaho to reach Yellow Stone in 600 miles.