Crater Lake National Park - Day 2

We started the day by getting 5 gallons of gas.  Did you know that gas is not self serve in Oregon? A person comes out and pumps your gas once you pull up. We are surprised and pleased each time an attendant comes out. Perhaps we are easily impressed.   In other big news, today our trip is half finished. We have been on the road for a month; it feels like a long time.  We're almost at 5000 miles of travel.

When we arrived at the park, we watched a film about the formation of Crater Lake.  Why is the lake so blue?  Because it is the deepest lake in the United States.  The water is pure because it is from melted snow.  No streams or rivers come into or go out of Crater Lake.  All the water drops into it and stays.  The lake is so pristine that it catches you off guard when you first see it.  We are drawn to beauty.



We took several short walks today, collecting 5.5 miles.  We ate lunch in our car for the second day because the yellow jackets gather as soon as we pull out food and Coke.  Also this park doesn't have many picnic tables.  That is a puzzle.  Yesterday we drove quite a while to locate a table, and then ended up in the car when the bees found us.  So, yes, we are roughing it.

In the afternoon we drove out the East Rim Road to see the Ghost Ship and the Pinnacles.  Both of them are hard rock that survived thousands of years of erosion.


This island in the lake does look rather like a ship with sails lowered.

The Pinnacles are rocky spires that remained after the eruption and collapse of Mount Mazama. They have withstood erosion for 400,000 years. The shapes vary.  As we walked on the trail and viewed them from different angles I could see different things:  triangles, party hats, antlers. The colors vary too.  Dark grey at the top and almost white halfway up.  This is a place for geologists.







We left the park around 5:00 pm and drove halfway home, stopping at Beckie's Cafe for yummy soup and salad and PIE!  We had Very Berry Pie with a scoop of ice cream.  Very Berry has blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, and raspberries.



Tomorrow we are headed to California!

Crater Lake National Park

Today we left Eugene, Oregon, and drove to Crater Lake National Park. On the way we passed Diamond Peak, which was dramatic especially when viewed behind Odell Lake.



When we entered the park, we were held up for 30 minutes because there is road construction on the west rim of the lake.  We waited patiently, looking out over the desert landscape. We were first in line to follow the escort truck through the construction zone.



When it was time for our line of cars to move, the guy driving the pilot truck had to get a push from the guy holding the Stop sign.  I remember pushing George's El Camino down 5th Street while he popped the clutch to start it.  We watched these two guys do that dance on the side of a dusty hill in the national park.  The truck started and chugged back up the hill to lead us.

George drove and I squealed as we moved past huge machinery on a winding road.  Of course, we were in the outside lane.  There was dust and crunching of dirt roads.  I leaned as far to the left as possible, trying to keep us on the mountain.  Finally, we reached pavement and were free.

We got our first look at Crater Lake.



So beautiful!  Such colors!



Crater Lake was formed 7700 years ago when Mount Mazama, a volcano, erupted.  Wizard Island is the cinder cone inside the lake. Even though the area gets 44 feet of snow year, the lake levels are stable due to evaporation and seepage. It's hard to picture 44 feet of snow.  We won't see it since the park closes in October.

We walked along the rim trail and checked out the visitors center and store.  We're coming back tomorrow for more hiking, a movie, and ranger talks.


Tiny pinecones from giant trees.


We drove for an hour through the national forest to reach our hotel
in Shady Cove, a small town near the park.  The quiet was impressive:
no radio, no wifi, no phones.  Just trees.

Eugene, Oregon

We enjoyed our day in Eugene.  It is a town of about 156,000 souls in an area of 44 square miles.  We found  all of the sights pretty close together on our tour.  We started by driving to the top of Skinner Butte. Eugene Skinner and his family were the founders of the town in 1846, when he built the first cabin in the area. In 1872 the University of Oregon was created, and the town really took off.  It's known as a great place for people who enjoy the arts and the outdoors.


The view from Skinner Butte.

We ate lunch in one of the parks that line the Willamette River.  There were bikers and walkers of all ages out and about on this lovely day.  Then we visited the Shelton-McMurphey-Johnson house, which some people think looks as if it belongs in a fairy tale. We also drove by the University of Oregon, which is close to Skinner Butte and the S-McM-J house.






In the afternoon we walked around the historic downtown shopping area called 5th Street Market.
There were interesting shops to peer into.  We were on a mission, seeking ice cream, and we did succeed. On the way we saw the charming Amtrak Station.  Outside was this directional art:




The base has three layers:
Top says, "Welcome" in different languages;
Middle has significant dates;
Bottom has mileage to some cities. 

We went to our airbnb cabin and moved in at the end of the afternoon.  It is in a lovely garden.


This arbor has kiwi and grapes growing from it.


A close-up of the grapes.


Our cabin sits behind Rebecca and Peter's house.

We are airbnb experts now, having stayed in at least ten on this trip.  It is fun and quirky and a bit of adventure to see how they shape up.  Mostly they are what we expect, but sometimes there is a surprise.  It can be a good one: There's chocolate!  Or a bad one: The neighborhood looks sketchy.
So tonight we don't have a sink in the bathroom, which is odd.  We keep looking for it.  No big deal since we are just here one night.  Just odd.

Lively Portland

We went for a walk along the Willamette River this morning and came upon the Portland Dragonboat Festival.  Now that is the sign of a vibrant city:  You are just out walking, and you discover a festival with a few thousand people participating.  We watched dragon boat races in 2014 in Florence, Alabama, so we were glad to see this northwest version.  There were teams from TX, CA, and BC here. There was a women's division and a mixed division.  The teams from Alabama would have fit right in.


My favorite team name was Blazing Paddles.

After walking a couple of miles, we returned to the car and went in search of Portlandia, not the TV show, the statue.  Portlandia is the second largest copper repoussé statue in the United States, after the Statue of Liberty.  Repoussé means the metal was shaped by hammering from the reverse side.  The sculptor, Raymond Kaskey, holds the copyright on his statue tightly and will not let Portlandia be used often, so it is not a well known statue.  It's on the Portland Building downtown.  That building is "an icon of postmodern architecture" designed by Michael Graves, which opened in 1982.  Portlandia was installed above the front entrance in 1985.




I learned this morning that post modern features on the Portland Building include the colors,
the small windows, the protrusions, and the diagonal line.

We came home for lunch (sandwiches with tomatoes from the yesterday's market) and naps. Here's a
photo of our airbnb location.


Our apartment is on the ground floor, behind the turquoise door.

Our airbnb host, David, recommended a walk along Hawthorne Street, four blocks away.  So we headed that way around 4:00 pm.  What a great suggestion!  There were wonderful shops to wander through, including Powell Books (the original store is downtown, but this one was plenty big).  Shop names and displays grabbed my imagination immediately, and I took photos of a few.










The Bagdad is a bar and a movie theatre.


A hat store called The Classic Collection.


A coffee shop.

We ate Mexican food and had margaritas for just $2.50 (happy hour) before walking home.
The trees on our street are starting to turn.

Portland - Weird and Wonderful

Our day in Portland started strangely.  We arrived with no trouble and found a parking space outside Safeway. I needed to go to the bathroom, and we had moved so quickly off the interstate and into a neighborhood, that I hadn't seen any place to stop.  So I walked confidently into Safeway, expecting to pee.  I found one locked restroom in a back hallway.  It had a code on the door.  I went to the drugstore within Safeway and said, "I need to go to the bathroom and there's a code for the door."
The druggist replied, "There's a code for the door."
I said, "What is the code?"
He said, "You have to ask at the front of the store."  Feeling desperate, I went to Customer Service.
As I approached, I heard a young man say, "She really has to go to the bathroom."
Then a woman added,"We did buy some things."  Oh, Lord.  I heard the code and followed the young woman back to the hallway, but someone else already occupied the bathroom.  So I left the store.
I think this whole procedure is because there are a lot of homeless people in that area.  I am sympathetic to everyone in this story, but it was embarrassing.

Feeling uncomfortable, we walked down the street to the Portland Farmers Market at Portland State University.  It was wonderful - cheerful and generous and green.  We bought a Cuban sandwich to share.  But, of course, I still needed to find a bathroom.  I was directed to a university building that was open.  I could have probably found it just by following the stream of women. (pun intended)

There was music in the park during the market.

We bought some vegetables for a stir fry and fruit pies for dessert and breakfast: peach, huckleberry, and marionberry (not to be confused with the ex-mayor of DC).  I took a few pictures of beautiful displays and some activities that I haven't seen before at farmers markets.

This was cool:  We returned our sandwich basket to this designated spot.

There was also a hand-washing spot and a place to fill your water bottle for free.

Selling whiskey at the market!

Vegan Man said it was ok if I took his photo.

An explosion of carrots.

After the Market we drove a few blocks to the Pioneer Courthouse, which has been described as Portland's living room.  The streets were filled with young people and the square in front of the courthouse was hosting a residency by the Portland Museum of Modern Art.  It was an open air museum.  There was sculpture, painting, and one sound piece.  We viewed the art and listened to another band, Dragging an Ox through Water.  There was an opportunity for the public to make art 

too, so I painted.

 

This was a parody/spoof of the William Carlos Williams poem.

Only this person ate the blueberries.

Here is the public painting area.  People were having fun with paint.

At 4:00 pm we drove to our apartment and settled in to watch The West Wing.  We just watched two episodes. (We can stop any time.)  We need a plan for this evening. 

Olympic National Park

We left Coupeville on Whidbey Island early this morning and took the ferry to Port Townsend.


Approaching Port Townsend on the ferry.

We drove around the north and west sides of Olympic National Park, entering the park three times to explore. * At the visitors' center we asked about ways to see the park and hikes to take.  The ranger explained that at Olympic they chose not to have a road cross the park.  That way the park's center is wilderness. The only way to explore it is on foot.  There are roads that enter the park and extend 10 or 20 miles, and there are a few lodges, but civilization is on the edges.


We ate lunch at Lake Crescent.


A wall sconce in Lake Crescent Lodge.

I really liked Lake Crescent Lodge, which was built in 1915.  It is smaller than the other national park lodges we've seen but charming and full of mission style furniture.  There was a fire burning in the fireplace when we entered.  I discovered this park too late in my planning to get a reservation for the night.

Our second stop was along the beach.  (Beach trail #4)  We parked and walked down a wooded trail to the Pacific Ocean.  It was tricky to climb down to the sand but so worth it.  Here are a few of the pictures from that spot:





super driftwood


Anemones in a tidal pool


I collected some of these flat stones.

Our final stop was in the Hoh Rain Forest at the July Creek picnic area.  The air was light and
rich.  The trees were giants.  Limbs and trunks and the ground were moss covered.


A green world.

Just before 5:00 pm we arrived at our hotel in Aberdeen, Washington.  We had a long day and still needed to do laundry.  Our entertainment tonight was watching True Grit (the remake).

*A couple of quirky things happened as we drove on the 101 around the park's perimeter.
First, we drove through Forks, WA, which is where the Twilight books were set.  We figured this out after seeing a handwritten note from Stephanie Meyer on the window of the ice cream shop.  Also on the way to our first stop in the park, at least a dozen loaded logging trucks passed us.

Whidbey Island

We had a relaxing morning on Orcas Island.  It was a beautiful, sunny day.  We had breakfast, read the paper, walked around Orcas Village, bought tee shirts, checked out of the hotel, and road over to the ferry. Then we relaxed even more because the ferry was an hour late.

Orcas Village

These are the first three cars on the ferry.

Finally, the ferry arrived.  Once the cars and people were all loaded, we went up to the railing. As we looked down on the cars parked below, I said, "I would be so freaked out if I had to park first in line, looking out at the water."
George said, "I wonder if I can spit into the window of that blue car." (We were standing above the blue car.)
I said, "That is the difference between women and men.  I have never thought of spitting at a target."  He replied, "I wonder if I can spit and hit the rope (in front of the cars)."  I left the scene before I double dog dared him.  Then he would have had to do it.

The ferry stopped at Shaw Island and Lopez Island before depositing us back in Anacortes.  

We drove south to Deception Pass, which connects Fidalgo and Whidbey Islands. We spent some time at the Deception Pass State Park, hiking in a lovely old forest.  

We also had a fun visit with our nephew, Donald, who is the reason we came to Whidbey Island today.  Donald is in the Navy, stationed at Whidbey.  What a great place to live!  The air is clean; there are no bugs; there is no humidity; there is delicious seafood.  There is water everywhere!  

We had dinner with Donald and got to see his house.  It was great to see him.