Wer finally made it to Crater lake, as must visit place on our Bucket list.  Although we had some haze from nearby forest fires, it still was breathtaking.  We got a great site to fit the RV into, but one thing we did find out that since we are in an volcanic area, it was pretty dusty from the ash that fell 7000 years ago when crater lake was formed.

We did a drive up to the Crater lake Lodge and had our 34th Wedding Anniversary dinner there which was very nice, and then took a drive around the eastern part of the lake, since the West Rim road was closed due to a forest fire nearby….

We were able to get a reservation to take the boat tour around the Lake.  We had to drive 40 minutes from the campground to the parking lot on the east rim.  From there, it is a 1 mile hike down 700 feet along the caldera, to the boat dock.  Now this doesn’t sound too bad, but knowing that you need to hike back up the 700 feet is going to be harder, considering that you are art a lake elevation at 6170 feet, which is higher than Denver’s 5300 feet, so you end up going from 6170 to close to 7000 feet high during that mile hike back up.  I will say we made it in 45 Minutes with quite a few stops to drink water and to get our breath back…quite a climb but it was worth it to do the boat ride.

The lake tour was fantastic, and I will use someone’s favorite term, it was AMAZING to see.  Since we were on the lake, there was less haze from the forest fire’s and you got a better appreciation of the blue color of the lake.  Overall it was a fantastic trip and we want to go back in the future during the fall, before they close the roads for the winter.

We then headed south back into California, going back to my brother’s place in Lake Oroville to driveway surf for a few weeks, time to restock, fix a few things, make a few upgrades.  Overall our western trip has turned out great, we got to see the big things we wanted, but also know we need to come back, the whole middle and eastern parts of California, Oregon, and Washington we did  not explore and we will need to make that a separate western swing down the road.   Thanks for following our journey.  Both cathy and I do more frequent posts on Facebook since it is easier to do them in between the longer blog posts, so send us a friend request and follow us that way if you want more frequent updates on  our travels.

BTW, both Phoebe and Layla has been doing great on our travels, we have been able to find them outdoor spots to run and play and they really make themselves at home in the RV.  I’ll do a future post just about them this week.