Ashland and Crater Lake

I know now why I usually do a Facebook album for trips. I want to post more pictures, but I like to look back and my blog and see what I did and remember all the little stories. My sister and her boyfriend came to visit from Munich. They started in California - wine country - for a wedding and worked their way up. We met up with them and my parents at Crater Lake. But first we headed out a day early and spent a morning exploring Ashland. We had breakfast at Brothers' Restaurant. It was pretty spendy, especially for breakfast, so we opted for less expensive items. Aaron a bagel sandwich.


I had the French toast and wished we had just split that, the bread was over an inch thick!


I tried Lithia water for the first time - yuck!


We wandered around Lithia Park. It was beautiful there, lots of space to wander around with a Japanese garden mixed in. We also really liked that all of the different kinds of trees were labeled. We worked on our tree ID'ing skills on this trip.


Then we were off to Crater Lake NP. My parents have this HUGE canvas tent from the 70's. It is ridiculous and I can't believe that they still use it.


Our first views of the lake - my sister's boyfriend Thilo's very first views! It was cloudy and not as blue as it usually is. But still beautiful.



Then it was back to camp to make dinner. My mom really likes to making camping meals that are intricate and somewhat over the top. I like to eat well while camping too, but I try to chop, grate and cook as much as I can in advance to keep it more simple. We were in charge of dinner the first night and had burritos.


Peppers and onions from our garden!


And for dessert, peach blackberry crisp. Aaron made up the topping ahead of time and we just put the fruit with a little sugar and cinnamon onto heavy duty tin foil, covered with topping and threw them into the fire.



Delicious, easy and no clean up!


The next morning we started the day with the loop hike at Annie's Creek. There were still quite a few wildflowers blooming.


Then back up to the lake - more blue today.



Phantom Ship


A family of Steller's Jays.


We had boat ride reservations in the afternoon, so we hiked down the Cleetwood Cove Trail to the water's edge. I got in the water with Catherine and Thilo and had time to mostly dry before we got on the boat.


The boat tour goes around the whole lake, with a ranger giving interesting bits of information along the way. It is unbelievable to be on a boat in that blue, blue water.



Our tour, however was over after 30 minutes because of this:


Which was a bummer, because it was an hour and 45 minute ride. They did give us our money back, but we didn't actually get to see anything cool (Phantom Ship, Wizard Island, or the Old Man of the Lake). We made it back to camp just as it was starting to rain. It was dinner time, but we instead huddled under a tree and ate chips and salsa and waited for the storm to pass.


Pretty soon, we started seeing some hail. Some of it was pretty big, and we laughed at its bigness.


Until everything falling from the sky starting being that large. Then we didn't know what to do until my sister yelled "Everyone get in a car!!". So we covered our heads and ran. And I sat in my car, swearing and feeling helpless that my car was being battered! The 1.5 inch hail lasted at least 5 minutes, maybe longer.


The campground was pretty much trashed. Everything was covered in needles and pine cones.


We ran around laughing as we found tree parts in all of the food that had been left uncovered.

My mom after the hail attack. Their tent was about to collapse under the weight of the hail, luckily Thilo saw this and grabbed a climbing helmet from their car and rescued it. Unfortunately their rain fly has been lost in the shuffle over the years, so their tent was soaked inside and out. They ended up having to find a motel, and going home early.


We stuck it out, but even though our rain flies worked, everything was still damp and cold. I didn't sleep well that night because I was freezing until about 6 am. My car has about 60 small dents on it from the hail, but I'm amazed it wasn't worse, the dents are hardly noticeable. The 4 of us went on the Discovery Trail the next morning, around part of the rim. Apparently I didn't take any pictures of this. This trip didn't turn out as planned, but at least these are the more memorable ones!