Hard Day's Night

Sunday 6/17

It was cold last night. It was one degree above freezing and we were in a tent. I'm not much of an outdoorsman. My version of "roughing it" is when I'm driving in the van and we only have two 120 volt AC outlets coming off the inverter to run the family electronics (sounds like Paul Atriedes in Dune speak of the family atomics). One of the highlights of the night (well, aside from waking up frequently to make sure I heard three other people breathing) was having to get out of my barely warm sleeping bag to trek halfway across the campsite to find one of the few bathrooms they had managed to get working when they opened the park the night before. At 2:30am, more than half asleep trying to find the short cut across the campground, I had a hard time deciding whether it was okay to shine the flashlight in directions that might go into people's tents. After awhile, I finally turned off the flashlight in hopes of some divine inspiration. When I looked up to find the moon, I was treated to the most amazing sky I've ever seen in my life. Undiluted by city lights, I could see stars everywhere! I could clearly see the band of the milky way and so many other stars between the stars I was used to seeing. It was really moving. "Moving" is not a word you use lightly at 2:30 in the morning.

After an early hike along the rim trail of Annie Creek, we had a light breakfast and broke camp at 10:30. Everyone hopped in the cars and we headed for the main event: a trip to the rim of Crater Lake. This is probably the first of many times on this trip that I will cop out and simply say "words cannot adequately describe what we saw." When I get online, I'll figure out where to post my pictures and let you decide for yourself.

The highlight of that particular segment of the trip was my daughter taking pictures. I've been teaching her what I learn as I go through the journey myself, and I'm really happy to see the things that she's trying with her little camera. She asked me more than a few technical questions around framing and light that were quite impressive.

The road from Crater Lake to Boring, Oregon (jokes will be left as an exercise for the reader) was not as majestic as the drive on Day 1. We drove a highway (I'll have to consult Nicole for the details) that was classic Northern Exposure: undivided, tall trees, lots of morons. What made the drive tough (aside from the lack of a decent front-mounted photon torpedo) was the relatively slow pace of our fellow motorists. We made the most of every possible passing lane and this required really being on your toes (as well as the next car's rear) so you could hit them with speed.

The sad part about all this was that we passed many a small town with inviting local eateries run by people named Mel and Sally who served grandma Mabel's meatloaf. Of course that would mean having to pass the unwashed masses again. Maybe Mel could have mounted the photons for me.

Highlights:
1. The deep blue water of Crater Lake. It actually looked bluer without my sun glasses on.
2. A full serve gas station! Serving gas at lower prices than I'm used to paying for self-serve, no less. I'm sure they thought they were charging an arm and a leg.
3. None of my fellow motorists were accidentally bumped to the bottom of a deep gorge.

Little Quirks:
1. There's a lot more smoking going on. Maybe it's just the places where we were traveling.
2. The first Oregon rest stop we saw advertised Free Wi Fi.
3. Ole's Medium Rare Fine Food. Need I say more?
4. We blew a bike tire. Apparently, tires don't like hot exhaust directly from tail pipes. The blowout was pretty spectacular. We thought it might have been a gun shot.