The Lovely Couple, The Lovely Lake
Day Two of the Trip: We had a really questionable continental breakfast in Burns at our hotel (pre-wrapped cheese danishes and coffee), and continued the drive west. Eventually things started to get a little more scenic and we arrived in Bend around lunchtime. I could tell you what we ate because I somehow have a photographic memory for vacation food, but I don't want to bore you. Okay, I had corned beef hash and fried eggs. God, I love corned beef hash.
At Bend we headed south and stopped for a while at the High Desert Museum. It was full of interesting exhibits about the wildlife, ecology, economy and history of the high desert, specifically southern Idaho, eastern Oregon, darn near all of Nevada, and parts of California and Utah. It also had live animals in dioramas, including otters, birds of prey and mustangs. Good stuff!
After the museum, we went to Crater Lake National Park You have never seen such a shade of blue in your entire life. It is the deepest lake in North America, at nineteen-hundred-and-something feet at the deepest point, which is why it is so doggone blue. We set up camp at Mazama campground, which is named for Mount Mazama, the volcano that blew its top to create the lake.
Since it was getting a bit late, we decided to prioritize the gift shop, which was very nice and had many attractive items at value prices. Ha. National Park gift shops are such a rip-off, but that didn't stop me from buying a t-shirt for me, a t-shirt for our house-sitter, a mug, a magnet and a deck of Wildflower Identification Playing Cards. I had money and I was there to spend it.
A moderately restful night followed, interrupted only by a tree-climbing rodent of some sort dropping a pine cone on our tent. It was here that I recalled the agony of a hugely developed campground where you can't just wander out of your tent in the middle of the night when you need to go wee-wee. I immediately instated my personal "Nothing to Drink after 7:00 p.m." policy, and it served me well.
More tomorrow. Are you guys enjoying this kind of travelogue, or would you rather I just cut to the chase?