Into the Mouth of the Crater - Day 3

Woke up in Crater Lake National Park and, thank goodness, the cold temperatures from yesterday have rolled out. Today we are taking the Cleetwood Trail down to the bottom of the lake and then taking a boat tour. The hike is one mile in length (one-way) and drops 700 feet as you descend from the East Rim Drive trailhead to the lakeshore. The return trip is comparable to climbing 65 flights of stairs. When we booked the boat tour, the reservation desk was skeptical of us taking a five year old on this trail, but Morgan is an excellent hiker.

The hike down was steep but beautiful. Pictures don't capture the true beauty and peace of Crater Lake.

View along the Cleetwood Trail. Notice how steep the trail is.

Looking down at the boat docks.


At the bottom of the crater.


The boat trip was excellent. Our Ranger, Don was well informed and gave us great information about the park and its formations. I highly recommend this tour. It's the only way to really learn all about the park.

A close-up of Phantom Ship.



Morgan complained more on the way down then she did on the way up. She marched right up the side of the crater singing her little heart out.

Once back up, we had a late picnic lunch and then visited the Crater Lake Lodge (we stayed at the much cheaper and much less fancy Mazama Cabins). The inside of the lodge is all wood and logs and is quite impressive. They also have a small exhibit about the history of the lodge.


We drove around the Rim a little bit and then took a stroll up to the Sun Notch Viewpoint, which provided a view of the Phantom Ship from above.


Phantom Ship from above.

This was one of our favorite spots so we decided we would return here tomorrow as well. For today, we were done with our hiking and exploring.

It was off to Annie Creek Resturant for a buffet dinner. We did bring a cooler and our own food, but we wanted to have a few meals that weren't PB&J sandwiches. We quickly found out, if you aren't eating your own food, the park has you, so they inflate the prices. This place is a complete rip off. It was expensive ($15.99/pp for the buffet) and the food was horrible. It was late in the day and most of the trays were empty or dried up. We found out later that they offer a lighter fare buffet (salad/soup only) and individual pizzas for much cheaper but this is not advertised, you have to specifically request it. Now we now better.

Waterfalls Galore - Day 2

From Glide we drove along the Rogue-Umpqua Scenic Byway to Crater Lake. There are seven waterfalls along this drive and we stopped at four of them.

Fall Creek Falls is a short one mile hike. It is a beautiful trail through a lush green forest. There is plenty to see and do along this trail: Jump from rock to rock in the creek...

... follow the trail that squeezes between two volcano made rocks...


...find trees that are as wide as you are....

... look through drainage holes on the path to see each other on each side....

...and at the end, you discover a gorgeous, cool waterfall.

The second waterfall that we wanted to visit was Toketee. This one is supposed to be the most beautiful one in the area. Unfortunately, the trail leading the falls was closed. It was a $1,000 fine for trespassing, so we decided to follow the rules and save this falls for another day.

Watson Falls was next on the drive. Morgan fell asleep right when we got here so we took turns hiking to the falls. This trail was pretty steep but you are rewarded with a view of Oregon's highest waterfall at the end.





It looks like all the spray from the waterfall makes a perfect living environment for a huge slug.

Whitehorse Falls was my least favorite falls. You had to battle hundreds of vicious mosquitoes for a look at a unimpressive puny waterfall.

The last waterfall was Clearwater Falls. This one is appropriately named since the pond above the falls is crystal clear and calm.

After viewing all the waterfalls, we finally made it to the end of our journey - Crater Lake. When we arrived it was cold. REAL cold! Scary cold! Oh no we have no winter jackets cold! We decided we would have to make a trip to the Gift Shop and buy some warmer jackets. Tomorrow we have the boat ride across Crater Lake. Let's hope the weather is better then.

Our Own Oregon Trail - Day 1

We are back and I'm going to try and back-post our trip if I can remember everything we did and saw. It's hard to get back into the swing of things after being completely unplugged for 8 days. I've looked at my Reader and see that I have over 160 posts to catch up on. I don't think I'll be able to read them all, but I'll try and catch up with everyone as much as possible.

The first day we flew into Portland and headed to John BarleyCorn to meet our friend Kevin (who moved from Colorado to Oregon) for lunch. I was glad that Kevin picked this spot because it's part of the McMeniman's group. I wanted to stay in their Old St. Francis School Hotel near Bend, but it was booked due to a yarn convention (I'm sure that's a really rowdy group of travelers). After having a delicious lunch including a pile of tater tots, we headed down to Glide where we were going to meet my parents for the night.

Our reservations were at Steelhead Run, a quaint Guest House along the Umpqua River. The place is currently for sale and it seems that the current owners don't maintain the outside as much as they probably used to. For example, here is what they have as an outdoor playground. We like to call it the Play Area of Doom. Anyone else find this slightly disturbing?


We also enjoyed several rounds of ping-pong despite the dust covering the table.


It could be a really beautiful place with a little TLC. Here is the river directly below the guest house. Morgan enjoyed "skipping rocks" across the river. Even Gigi, at 60-something learned how to skip a rock for the first time. Mark and I were a little concerned about the five Vultures and that enjoyed circling overhead. We were hoping they didn't know something that we didn't.


The rooms were wonderful - very clean, well maintained and quite large. Our room, The Heritage Room, came with a full kitchen. Overall it was a nice spot to stop for a night.

Gone Fishing

Tomorrow we head to Oregon for a family vacation. I have never been to Oregon before and I'm looking forward to see Crater Lake and the beauty it has to offer. We are also going to be staying at the Out 'n' About Treehouse Resort, where this will be our "room".

Yes, we are going to literally going to be tree-huggers for a few days.

Morgan is so excited to be staying in a tree house. The resort also offers several zip line courses, rope swings, rope bridges, kid forts, a swimming hole and lots of exploring.

See you in a week!

Birthday Celebrations

Morgan had her birthday party a couple weekends ago but she still had plenty of celebrations this week. On Saturday we went to Grammie's house.




Tuesday, her actual birthday, she opened the presents from us and Grandpa came over to celebrate. (And yes, that equal a total of three birthday cakes)

She's also developed quite the addiction. She obsession: stuffed animals. She received (by request) two Webkins (she already had three) and four plush Littlest Pet Shop. We went to the Disney store today and she wanted to use her birthday money on...you guessed it... four stuffed animals. At least they were buy one get one free.

She already had so many stuffed animals that we had to buy a special shelf for them. I think her goal is to fill her room completed with these fuzzy friends. She's well on her way!

Happy 5th Birthday Morgan

Where, oh where has the time gone? I swear I just blinked and suddenly you are five. Weren't you my baby just a minute ago?

2004

2005

2006

2007
2008
2009

You are growing into a beautiful, energetic, knows-what-she-wants, sometimes sassy, witty, hilarious, compassionate, and very smart young lady. I can only image what the next five years will bring.

We love you Buggaboo!

The 4th of July

This weekend has been super busy so I'm posting the 4th pictures a little late.

On Friday we headed out to Parker's H2O Water Park with the Moore's. We were there for almost four hours and I swear Caleb and Morgan went down the kiddie slide at least 100 times. Mark and I were forced to race Hannah down the regular water slides. I believe I am reining champion. We had so much fun, we will definitely go back again.

Saturday morning started with our community parade. Our local fire truck lead the kids on their bikes and scooters through the neighborhood. They started at the school, weaved in and out of streets and ended at the fire station. Even Champ got into the spirit of things.







The weather did not hold up during the day so our outdoor BBQ became an indoor event with the Meyer and Banaitis Families. It was nice just long enough for the kids to find their small plastic animals that we buried in the sand.



Luckily, the rain stopped in time for the fireworks so we headed out the Aurora Mall parking lot.



All of these excitment made for two very tired little girls.