Crater Lake in snow

9/9/2010 

Crater Lake Lodge after dinner

Sunrise over Crater Lake, OR

Big disappointment. I was up several times in the night looking out my pricey deluxe lake view room window to see stars, or even better stars and moon reflected on the lake. No such luck. At about 5am, it seemed a little clear sky window opened up directly above the Lodge and I could see some bright stars but no lake. We showered and hurried downstairs and outside into freezing rain and visibility of about 15 feet.



We went back inside the Great Hall and had some complimentary coffee and hot tea and watched the lake view out the windows near the big fireplace. There were 2 very brief periods when the clouds blew out from over the lake and then it would cloud back over. Somewhere the sun was rising because it became daylight within our clouds but we did not see a sunrise! By 6:45am the lobby and hall area were getting pretty busy. I don’t know if I mentioned it last night, but we were the 3rd reservation to check in at the dining room. We were called 3rd after 5pm and opening arrived. This meant that we did not get a table by a window because there are only 2 two-tops by the windows and they will not seat 2 at a four-top.

I was determined to get a 2-top by the window this morning so I went and stood by the podium at a few minutes to 7am. The girl there turned out to be the coffee/tea girl and we had already visited. She checked the time when I walked up and told me it would be a few minutes, I told her I knew and I would wait. I think she knew I wanted to be sure to sit by a window, since that was what I was doing from 5:30am to 7am! At 7:01am she walked us to the best window table for 2. Mission accomplished! We watched for 30 minutes as rain turned into what we in Raleigh would call a blizzard. It just kept coming down, we could see snow accumulating outside and decided like many others we overheard to just hustle on down the mountain and out of the snow.

time to go...

I had the Crater Lake Eggs Benedict which was not too good, the Hollandaise was transparent and watery, they put a slice of tomato on them and the English Muffins were sourdough, which I don’t like. Clay had 2 eggs fried with toast, Marionberry jam and he paid $2 extra to have Bison hash, since the waitress last night convinced him to have lamb chops over Bison Prime Rib. He thought the Bison Hash tasted funny. It looked the same as my hash browns, or fried potatoes, and I thought mine tasted normal. Since he had paid the extra $2 for Bison in his hash browns, he picked out every bite of the meat and left a big pile of taters! Anyway, he spent the rest of the day in gastric distress and looking for restrooms everywhere we stopped.

West Rim Drive

We checked out an hour early and rather than try any further sightseeing, we drove the West Rim drive out of the park in very low visibility. We were hoping that we might find some pockets of clearing like we did yesterday afternoon, but no such luck! We never got a peak at anything other than road and snow! After going down a couple thousand feet in elevation we left snow, and sleet and visibility improved and it rained on and off pretty much all the way to Salem.

a viewpoint on West Rim Drive

leaving viewpoint on West Rim Drive

We wound up making very few stops driving to Portland today. It is sad but it is the weather and you take what you get. We did stop at one or two places on the Rogue-Umpqua National Scenic Byway (the other, curvy end of Hwy. 138) to I-5 when there was a break in the rain and I will post photos when we get home. Immediately after we merged into I-5 traffic and settled into the flow, we ran into a couple of long and extra-long tractor-trailers. I don't think trucks are allowed to pull 3 trailers at once in NC! Anyway, just as I finished pulling past the 3-trailered truck and was about to pull back to the right, we entered a bridge with very narrow shoulders and concrete walls on either side. There was a MAN staggering down the road in the right lane! I watched the rear view mirror in horror as the extra-long truck swerved to try to avoid hitting the man as well as not knock the rest of the passing traffic off the bridge. I did not see any accidents, but what a nightmare! Who needs coffee with excitement like this in the morning to get your heart pumping? When we came around the front of the truck, I said, MAN! Clay sat up and grabbed his camera thinking I thought there was a good view atop the bridge. He was looking out the side windows and said where... I nearly screamed MAN in the road! I don't know how those trucks missed hitting him or another car to get around him. I can't imagine what was wrong with that guy to be walking in traffic on an Interstate Highway!


Umpqua River




Another Umpqua River view




Colliding Rivers Visitors Center


We had another little panic as we tried to find a place by the Interstate to get Internet access around 12:30pm and the 24-hour mark for online check-in for our Southwest flights tomorrow. We finally got logged on near Albany, I think, through a Super 8 Motel’s wi-fi while parked in a McDonald’s parking lot.

We drove on to Salem and had lunch at a Shari’s Restaurant. We had been seeing signs for these places but had not seen one or stopped at one. We both thought of Perkin’s when we walked in to face a pie case and saw the sign for free pie on Weds. 4-10pm with dinner. But, Shari’s serves beer and wine and we’ve never seen that at Perkin’s. We both had the lunch trio. It was either $7.99 or $8.99, we each had a different price in our menus. I had soup, turkey sandwich and chocolate pie. Clay had salad, chicken salad sandwich and peach cobbler, with NO ice cream!

We drove about another hour to get to our destination the Red Lion Inn at the airport. Traffic was horrific for the last 30 minutes of that going 20mph in a 55mph zone in 3-4 lanes bumper to bumper. It was like rush hour! It was only around 3pm though. We decided that we would not attempt any more tourism in Portland. (As we were driving under a hanging cable car somewhere over Portland that we had no idea existed and by a black submarine docked in the Willamette River!) Anyway, the plan now was that we would get repacked for flying! Clay would get his treadmill workout at the Red Lion Inn. We would go out to dinner and try to get a good night’s sleep. In the morning we would get up at a reasonable hour and go to breakfast. Clay has been dying to eat a chain called Pig n Pancake and there is one here in Portland. I want to go back to Voodoo Doughnuts and get a dozen to carry home, though they may all get eaten tomorrow on the planes since we will on board for both lunch and dinner. We will get back to Raleigh near midnight tomorrow. Frankly, it will be good to be home. While we have been very impressed with everything Oregon, this has been a hard vacation. Since we have been without Internet for more than half of this trip, I will have to come back into this blog and edit to add photos after we get home and that will probably be the last work I do on this blog. This is probably the last entry then.

Crater Lake, Oregon

9/8/2010

Red Lion Inn's Hot Pancake Dispenser!

Clay was up first this morning and told me to get up at 6am. I showered and we packed up and loaded the car… in the rain! We drove around to the Red Lion Inn lobby building to check out and have the $4.99pp Get Roarin’ Breakfast. This was worth it because of the pancake vending machine! Did you ever even imagine such a thing? You put your plate under a roller on one end and push a button to order 2 pancakes. (You really can’t have just one! One is not an option.) In about 1.5 minutes the first edge of pancake appears and slowly rolls out and flops onto your plate, quickly followed by the second pancake. I had pancakes! I also had a sausage patty, a bacon slice, water and a coffee with cocoa mix. Clay had orange juice, scrambled eggs, potatoes, bacon, sausage, toast, a Danish and a cinnamon roll; no pancakes.

Covered Bridge Museum near Dexter/Lowell, OR

Then we got an early start on our 2.5 hour drive to Crater Lake, Oregon. We started out southbound on I5 to Hwy. 58 to to Hwy. 97 to Hwy. 138. It sounds complicated, but it wasn't because there aren't that many roads to Crater Lake.

Tunnel! Look at that guardrail!

The drive was very scenic. It rained off and on the whole way, at the highest elevation we could see snowflakes on the windshield. We climbed to over 5000 feet and saw rivers, lakes, a rainbow, water falls, a covered bridge, a dam, a deer with fuzzy antlers and miles of wildly curving roads and thousands of evergreen trees. Needless to say I drove again today.

Rainbow over Odell Lake, OR

Hwy. 138 - That is a straight road!

We're here!

We arrived at the North Entrance to Crater Lake National Park at around 10am. Check in time at the Lodge is 4pm, so we took the long drive around the East Rim. The ranger who sold us our pass told us to be careful as visibility was poor today! She said that it was rainy inside the rim. Well, she was right and wrong. The sun came and went. Rain came and went and turned into sleet and into snow and back into rain and then sun again. The high today is about 46 degrees F. It is quite comfortable when the sun comes through and quite miserable when the sleet is blowing sideways, under the shade, or even inside of a cloud. We are satisfied anyway. It would have been nice to be able to use the rocking chairs on the back porch of the lodge, but they are soaked. The NPS forecasters are not predicting that it will clear out tomorrow morning either. Too bad. Still hoping for a good sunset and sunrise.


Pumice desert along Crater Lake North Entry



Our 1st view of Crater Lake with Wizard Island

Beautiful Crater Lake, Oregon

Around 12:30pm to 1pm we ran into sun, so we stopped and sat on the wall overlooking Pumice Castle and Phantom Ship and had a little picnic of cherries, Nabs, almonds, Raisinets and water. As we sat there we watched a cloud come over the high part of the rim on the opposite side. We wondered if it would slip on down or burn off in the sun and dissipate. We sat and watched as it dropped down all the way to the surface of the lake and darkened its way across towards us. Clay kept saying it would burn off, but I guessed as it reached the midpoint that we had about 3-5 minutes to clear out. We abandoned post shortly after a tiny ground squirrel ran under our legs and we started to get wet. It was pretty amazing and spectacular. Crater Lake is 5 miles in diameter. There are no inlets or outlets. It is 1943 feet deep and the 7th deepest lake in the world and the deepest in the USA. Wizard Island on the west side of the lake is a cinder cone that rises 760 feet above the water and at the top is a crater 300 feet across and 90 feet deep. How amazing is that? It’s a small crater at the top of a small extinct volcano inside the crater of a huge extinct volcano.

Here comes the rain!



Uh-oh!



Wildlife!




More wildlife...



Phantom ship rock formation in Crater Lake



Clay and Debbie (and Bob) at Crater Lake, OR


We reached the Rim Village about 2pm and went into the Steel Visitor’s Center and watched the 18 minute film about the creation of the crater and the park. Then we drove on to the Rim Village Gift Shop and Café. We walked around the amazing viewing area there and then drove on to the Lodge.

There it is!

We arrived at about 3pm and we were able to check in so we did. We got room 212, a deluxe lake view room which is what we had reserved and paid for months ago. It’s view is partially blocked by trees, but that may be true of most of the rooms. We brought in our luggage and checked out the room, then went back out because it looked out our windows like the sun was out.

What a view for these little guys!

Just spectacular!

We opened the back door off the Great Hall and got a face full of slushy rain. We zipped up and walked down the little paved and benched lookout area back there anyway and we were rewarded with a rainbow touching down right in the lake. Amazing! It was a snowbow! We did not hurry back in, but once back in we dried out in rocking chairs in front of a huge fireplace with gas logs burning. There were waitstaff wandering offering to serve snacks and hot and alcoholic beverages, but we passed to save our appetites for dinner.

a snowbow!



Wizard Island, Crater Lake Oregon



Drying out and warming up in Crater Lake Lodge Great Hall

We have a 5pm reservation and I have to go now to wake Clay from his nap and get down to the dining room. More later. Oh, there is no Internet here, though oddly enough when we drove through Mazama Camping Village they had wi-fi symbols up along with restrooms, etc. and that hardly seems right given the price premium at the lodge. It isn’t like they don’t have it, there is a wi-fi network up and running in the Lodge, they just aren’t allowing guests access! So we’ll have to post after we get back to Portland tomorrow!


Our Crater Lake sunset 


Back from dinner and it has at last stopped precipitating. But, we are still socked in with low clouds so we just got a few moments of the faintest few splotches of pink on the lake. Bummer! Still have fingers crossed for a brilliant sunrise over the lake. When we went out after dinner the temperature had dropped to 35 degrees F and even though it was no longer blowing or wet, it was cold!

Dinner in the dining room was good, not great and very expensive. Over $120 for the 2 of us with 2 drinks, 3 courses and tip. Clay couldn’t decide and let the waitress lead him astray with the lamb recommendation. He immediately regretted it. But he ate it all and part of my Classic Chicken Dijon with a polenta cake and braised greens. I had French onion soup to start and it was not great, but hot soup on a cold wet day is always good. I had flourless chocolate torte with raspberry sauce for dessert. Clay had a salad with Marionberry vinaigrette and Gorgonzola to start and triple berry crumble with vanilla ice cream for dessert. Clay told me to make sure I came back here and added that he paid $4.95 extra for a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top of the $7.95 cobbler! I had the Crater Lake Lodge Private Reserve Label Pinot Gris to drink and Clay had an IPA draft beer from some microbrewery in Ashland, OR, sorry don’t remember the name.

So, anyway that was our big finale vacation day. Not a total washout, but less than hoped for. Tomorrow we hope for excellent weather here in Crater Lake and then we will drive out on a different route before returning to I-5 for the run back to Portland. We have a room reserved tomorrow night at the Airport Red Lion Inn and we have no plans for anything in Portland. We will have to see how time and weather are if we do anything else here, or there, or between here and there. Good night.