Day 5: Lakin'

The Fearsome Threesome were up at half-past five this morning.  Mt. Shasta was still slumbering in the clouds when the pitter-patter of little grunts and squeals could be heard coming from the pack-n-play.  We decided to take advantage of the unexpectedly early wake-up call and hit the road.  Our plans to take Highway 97 to Klamath Falls, OR were scrapped when we got news that a big section of it had been closed off by fire crews.  So we took Interstate 5 to Medford, and drove to Crater Lake from there, instead (interesting details!) Although the visibility was basically beef stroganoff, there were still some mighty good mountain scenery to be had.  Crossing into Oregon in what looked more like the dry Colorado plateau than the Pacific Northwest was a particular highlight.  Erica was asleep.

James conceded us almost two hours of driving time this morning, so we made it all the way to the Union Creek historic settlement about 20 miles from Crater Lake until he woke up displeased to be in the car seat again.  We fed him under a canopy of 200 ft. Douglas firs and afterwards stumbled upon this photo op:

The Edith Ann of his generation

Construction during the busiest month in the park is always a great idea, and it's the one the fine folks at Crater Lake had this week.  It took us nearly an hour to get to the caldera rim (~7100 ft.) from Union Creek because the one road kept going down to one lane.  I was to the point of regretting having come all the way up here.  Crater Lake is in the middle of absolutely nowhere, which, since we were going to be in the very general vicinity of it, made me want to go there, because when are you ever going to find yourself in this remote part of Oregon again?  Sure, you might go to Portland, but that's 250 miles from here. Anyway, Crater Lake used to be a mountain--Mt. Mazama--to be exact, which blew its stack roughly 7,700 years ago, collapsed in on itself, and filled with rain and snow.  It's just the deepest lake in the US, no biggie, with water so clear you can see down over 120 feet.  Another interesting fact, which I find literally unbelievable: the native people, the Klamath tribe, tell a story about two warring gods, one represented by Crater Lake and the other Mt. Shasta, hurling fire and boulders at one another, which anthropologists have identified as having derived from this cataclysm.  Could this event, which occurred over 5,000 years before the Great Pyramid of Giza was built, have lingered in a pre-literate peoples' memory for so long?  YOU BE THE JUDGE!

Anyway, I was still fuming at the traffic when we hit the rim.  And then I changed my mind:

Fwuh-POW! Crater Lake

Moreover

Ba-Zing! That's Wizard Island in the background.

Furthermore

Gaack!

And

Glug!

Finally

Zounds!

James celebrated this feeding in the most beautiful of places with a fantastic blowout that forced Erica and I to throw out a large picnic blanket that she had received free from work.  We didn't get to tackle a whole lot of the park unfortunately.  If we never come back, we'll be able to say we were here; if we do make it back, there's still plenty to do.  The ride home was a quiet one. We arrived in Medford, checked in to our hotel, the enjoyed the tasty offerings of BricktownE Brewing.  Tomorrow: the redwoods!

Thorns: Traffic in the middle of the woods

Roses: Didn't break any glass!  Also, the lake, duh.

Buds: Jed Smith State Park and a potential detour to Oregon Caves? Stay tuned, dear readers.

Car Miles: 246

Total Miles: 2482.5

--Grant

Day 4: Not the Way We Drew It Up

Today started off with saying goodbye to our gracious hosts, the Watsons, and heading north.  Our first stop was Chico, CA because it fell roughly a nap-length amount of time from Roseville, where we'd been.  The drive up through the Central Valley was peaceful.  The valley is the source of much, if not most, of our nation's fruits, and has hence come to be called the "fruitbasket of the nation" (nb: previous to today, I associated the word "fruitbasket" exclusively with the expression "getting kicked in the fruitbasket").  Erica, who harbors strong locavore tendencies, was drooling over the endless series of fresh produce stands lining the highway.

Our first stop in Chico was a grocery store for road trippin' supplies, and then we headed to In-n-Out Burger and got everything Animal Style.

Healthy

James--who was a champ today, again, by the way--was getting a bit restless in his seat, so we found a local greenspace and let him sprawl out on a large beach towel, where he spent the better part of a half an hour rolling back and forth.  Quite an accomplishment for the little fella!

The drive to Lassen Volcanic National Park was beautiful.  It's 85 miles from the city up a twisty road to the park's interior, and in that stretch you rise 8,496 vertical feet.  We stopped off at the park's impressive new visitor's center, where James got a National Park passport book and his first stamp.

VERY excited about Dad affixing the stamp

Overwhelmed, even

Our next stop in the park was the so-called "Sulfur Works", a wet fart of a hole in the ground that belches noxious fumes with every toot and splatter.  Geologically cool, because it marks the site of the central vent of the once immense Mt. Tehama that collapsed eons ago and formed the Lassen area,  it's a must for lovers of the sight of boiling grey mud-water and/or the aroma of latrines.

Insert your own fart joke

Heading north through the park, we snapped this beauty at about 8,000 ft.

Our last stop in Lassen was supposed to be for a short hike around an alpine lake, but James was falling asleep.  So we decided to capitalize on his napping, skip the hike, and proceed to our next stop, McArthur-Burney Falls State Park (which features a 129-foot water fall that Teddy Roosevelt once outrageously called "the 8th wonder of the world" despite it not being one of the ten highest waterfalls in the state) where we'd take a short hike instead.  Mistake.  As we drove out of Lassen, a park ranger at the station gravely informed us that the road to Burney had been cut off by fire, and all traffic was being routed to Redding.  James was asleep, so all was good with him, but Redding was not on the way and, given that James was due to wake up about the time we were due to arrive there, we had to find something for us to do.  

There is nothing to do in Redding.  Downtown Redding, at least.  I took no pictures because it merited none, and we couldn't even find a patch of grass on which to pitch a blanket for James.  It was at this point that, Erica's patience for the detour running low, I let one of James' glass milk bottles slide off the hood of the car where I'd set it, and it smashed to pieces in the street.  So that makes three broken glass containers in three days.  Consistency!

The last leg of today's drive was completed in a dark mood.  James woke up a bit earlier than anticipated and was none too pleased to find himself still in the carrier.  We made it into Mt. Shasta to find the top of the actual Mt. Shasta itself shrouded in clouds.  But once out of the car, the boy did great, and was smiling when we put him down for bed.  Afterwards, Erica and I enjoyed take-out Italian while watching the sun go down behind the mountains. 

Thorns: Fire re-route and more broken glass

Roses: Romantic, plastic cutlery dinner; In-n-Out; summit views

Buds: Crater Lake!

Today's Car Miles: 297

Total Trip Miles: 2236.5