Road Trip 2009 - Crater Lake National Park

In Roseburg, we stayed over at Best Western Garden Villa Inn. They provided us with the best complimentary breakfast we had on this trip :) The worst was at Super 8, Eureka :(

After the great breakfast, we headed off on Route 138 towards Crater Lake National Park.

Along the way was Diamond Lake where we stopped to have lunch. It is not always easy to find lunch or dinner whenever we want on the road trips because a lot of the time, we were driving in the middle of nowhere and the next town might be a few hours away.

We found out that Diamond Lake was actually a resort and many came to fish. There was also an area where people swam.

Just outside of Diamond Lake was a scenic viewpoint where we could see supposedly Mount Bailey to the west and Mount Thielsen to the east. Please don't ask me which is which in the photos :)

It didn't take very long to reach Crater Lake National Park from Diamond Lake. We knew Crater Lake would be spectacular because we had to pay entrance fee :)

The landscape was rather odd. We drove into the park and before we reached the mountain, there was an area of very flat land which we later found out was actually a desert.

We saw white-ish stuff by the road. I said snow and Justin was not convinced and so we stopped to find out. It was snow! There was still quite some snow that had yet to melt in July.

It took a while to drive up to the perimeter of the crater to see the lake but when we finally saw it, it was just unbelievable. The water was so so so blue!

Our next surprise was a deer that just suddenly appeared from the steep slopes in front of us.

I have to re-emphasize that I didn't do any color correction to the water in the lake. It really was very very blue...

Sonya and Clara just loved to pick up stones, rocks, pebbles...

There are a few islands in the lake formed by later eruptions. The largest one, Wizard Island, is actually accessible by boat but it is quite a strenuous route to get to the jetty. If you are like us, thinking about taking a dip in the lake, you will be disappointed because there are only very limited places where you can actually reach the water and the water is always very very cold.

Small island that looked like a phantom ghost ship.

At the southeast corner of the national park is the Pinnacle Valley.

Lining the edges of the valley are these little structures and thus the title Pinnacles.

You can probably tell by now that I was always on the look out for interesting fauna and flora. I was very amazed by pine cones.

View of Wizard Island from the Watchman Overlook.

There were a pair of bald eagles but they were too far away for us to take a good look. If you look at the photo above, the two white spots near the edge of the water were the eagles.

Watchman Tower right at the top in the photo below.

As it was still early and we had all our swimming gear with us, we drove back to Diamond Lake to let Sonya and Clara "swim" in the lake.

There were life vests near the toilets for kids to use free of charge. Sonya and Clara had gotten used to life vests while in water after Sonya used it in her swimming class.

I brought Sonya and Clara into the water while Justin took photos.

How often do you get to swim in a beautiful lake with beautiful mountainous terrain in the background?

The water was quite cold and the wind was blowing. Clara found it too cold pretty quickly and declared she was done with water.

Clara and I got changed while Justin "swam" with Sonya. Clara was much happier enjoying her snack by the side.

After our "swim", we headed back toward our hotel in Roseburg. Along the way, we saw people fishing in the river that ran next to the road.

We made a stop at one of the carparks because Clara pooped and we had to change her diaper.

One of the guys who was fishing told us that the salmons would be jumping soon and pretty soon, we heard and saw splashes in the water. The white splash near the edge of the water was one of those splashes.

Another very interesting experience when we least expected it :)