Saturday, August 27. The last day of our first full week away from home.

Up at 5:30 am in Ashland. Packed, stopped in Medford for a lengthy encounter with the blood lab at the local hospital, attempting to fill an order from my doc in Palo Alto. Failed. On to Fred Meyer to pick up a few groceries for lunch  and  dinner.  Stopped at Starbucks to break my fast for the fasting blood test that never happened. So. Up at 5:30, on the road at 10:30. A quick five hour departure from Ashland. Next stop, Crater Lake, Oregon.

At Crater Lake we found a place to park in the woods and dined on pb&j sandwiches in the rig. Then: A spectacular sight.

For those of you unaware of the internet as an information source, a few factoids about Crater Lake:

6 miles wide

Almost 2 miles deep

4.9 trillion gallons

The bluest lake in the world (so they say)

The crater was formed almost 8,000 years ago when Mount Mazama erupted, sending 12 cubic miles of magma skyward and covering what is now the entire U.S. Northwest with ash two feet deep. The eruption was more than 100 times greater than that of Mt. St. Helens in 1980.  

This visit  has been therapeutic for me. I now have a new worry to take my mind off global warming.

On to La Pine State Park on the Deschutes River, where we spent our first night actually camping in  the motorhome.  We were greeted by Debbie and Don, our camp hosts with an RV roughly the size of Texas.

Dinner was delicious pasta and  salad en plein aire.  

After dinner we decided to walk to the river, about 200 feet from our rig. On the way we met 10-year-old Grace, who vigorously offered to show us the best place to see the river. We followed her on foot for about two miles to a steep slope full of brambles. Grace hopped off her bike and loped down to the river in her flipflops and shorts with us picking our way gingerly behind. Then she turned to us and said, "I LOVE being a kid!" She probably rethought that when her mother grounded her for disappearing without telling anyone (except us).

Kate and Grace

Sunday morning. Packed up at 7:00 am, got breakfast at the justly famous Jake's Diner in Bend, drove 20 miles looking for a scenic overlook that apparently doesn't exist, realized I had left a small RV part on the  ground at the  campsite, looked up the nearest RV parts store, backtracked 15 miles and found it to be closed on Sundays, located another one, got the part, and were underway by noon. We sensed a pattern emerging -- the five hour departure.

Jake's

Breakfast for Two

Today we progressed toward Montana. Still in Oregon, we passed through John Day Fossil Beds National Monuments, Painted Hills Unit. Unique and beautiful hills striped softly over many millennia with layers of cerise and green pastels. Fossils included ancient rhino bones.

More driving ahead -- Idaho tomorrow.