After the dismal night’s sleep in Chemult, OR, we headed for the Lava Cast Forest to start day 3′s adventures.  Takes 9 miles [...]]]> OK, so, it’s not quite a year ago (yet) that we did this, but, you know, the pictures keep the memories fresh. Here’s part 1 and part 2 for those that aren’t so fresh.

After the dismal night’s sleep in Chemult, OR, we headed for the Lava Cast Forest to start day 3′s adventures.  Takes 9 miles of dirt roads covered in a powdery dust to get to — ohh well, after 4 drops of rain per square inch the night before, this dirt was just the icing on the cake for the new car:

The lava casts were fascinating. Quick blurb about it here:

Which, to be perfectly honest, a nice paved trail was ideal for the pregnant mama and todler. This is a fairly shallow cast — only a couple feet deep. Some of them were 7-8 feet deep.

You can really get a good idea of how the trees stopped the lava flow before they burned out. Valerie is standing tall on her feet here.

At the end of the trail, this tree stump was too perfect of a todler photo op. If only she’d look at the camera.

This is my favorite of the bunch.

Many more photos of the lava casts in the second and third pages of the gallery.

The drive back down the dirt road was done largely with the engine off, you know, because I could.  Alas, I lost the bet and had to fire it up before we got to the end of the dirt.

Heading north on HWY 97, figuring we really hadn’t had enough lava for one day, I really wanted to do some spelunking. Lava tube spelunking in the Lava River Cave. I seam to have forgotton to take the camera on this adventure.  The sheer size (height/width) of the lava tube was impressive considering it used to be full of swiftly moving magma. We didn’t make it all the way to the end (1.0 miles) because Maia was D.O.N.E being in the backpack carrier. We bundled her up for the cold temps, but, just riding along probably left her a bit on the chilly side. No worries. It wet our apetite to see more lava tubes and convinced us that the Ape Cave in St. Helens would be well worth a vist later in the tip.

With all of the stops and side trips, we only did a bit over 200 miles of purposeful travel on Day 3 of the trip.

We did stop and gander at the shoe tree at mile post 53 on Route 97, just out of Shaniko. Good shot of it here. When littering turns to art.

Once we got on the freeway, Valerie was busy on the iPhone checking out possible places to stop. The “Rufus Rocks” motel called to us to check out simply for the name alone. Turns out, it was under new management for the last few months as the “Hillview Motel”. All the better, since the friendly family that took over was renovating it room-by-room on their own. Wasn’t anything fancy, but, they were happy to have us as guests, even if we didn’t didn’t spring for one of the newly renovated rooms.

And it turns out, that was probably for the better.  After having a shower, Maia was running around nakey while I zoned out in front of the TV and Valerie had her turn in the shower.  Next thing I know, Maia starts hysterically yelling, “clean it up, clean it up” and she was jumping up and down while pointing at the floor.  I look over the edge of the bed and realize she’s pointing at a perfectly formed log of poo that was about the dimensions of her forearm. And, if you haven’t already glanced at your forearm and pondered that for a moment, needless to say, it was huge! Poor kid; no wonder she was hysterical. At least she had the good graces to drop it on the tile entry way instead of the carpet.

Don’t worry, I’m sure that room has been renovated by now…

We awoke from our caboose cabin and Maia was happily asleep in her locker private room which gave Valerie and I a peaceful morning to ease into the day while the sun peaked over the mountainous horizon. When Maia awoke, she was excited to be [...]]]> At only 212 miles covered, day 2 was all about Crater Lake.

We awoke from our caboose cabin and Maia was happily asleep in her locker private room which gave Valerie and I a peaceful morning to ease into the day while the sun peaked over the mountainous horizon. When Maia awoke, she was excited to be in the train and after getting dressed she wanted to “ride train” while snacking on a granola bar. More than happy to oblige, I climbed up with her and sat on the opposing seat and we pretended our caboose was swaying down the track while making choo choo and whistle noises. Even Valerie gingerly climbed the rungs once to come play train with us. Incidentally, only a few cabooses have the upper level observation deck.

As we gathered the accouterments from the cabin and got the car loaded, Maia wanted to, “play stairs”. In true form, she managed to make a playground out of any available obstacle and kept herself entertained. This quality of hers is, after all, what really let us make this trip in the first place.

With the car mostly packed, we moseyed around the park and checked out the variety of cabooses they had. Maia started pouting when her “play stairs” session was so abruptly terminated by our walkabout

The park is nestled in a valley, and the Cascade mountains are all around. Although it was still smoky, this was the first day we’d seen blue sky in about two weeks.

We got on the open road and decided to get a few miles in and then stop for breakfast. Little regard beyond going north was given as to what road those miles would be covered on — the destination was, after all, breakfast. And indeed it was found when we stopped in Yreka at the Black Bear Diner. Turns out they are small chain throughout the west (38 stores), which is just fine by me as their 7-Grain Almond Granola Pancakes are worth going back for.

Back on the road, I asked Valerie to check the map and remind me what road we’d need to go to Klamath Falls. After a brief study, she responded confused that there’s no obvious reason to go to Klamath Falls. It quickly became clear the road we wanted was already well behind us. So, regarding that GPS purchase we debated about prior to the trip … yeah, it was looking like we’d chosen poorly. But, that’s another story.

We spied a small, unnamed road in the atlas that head more directly to Crater Lake. A quick check of the iPhone showed it did have a name: Dead Indian Memorial Road. Crisis averted!

Dead Indian Memorial Road to the 140 was a very lightly traveled, well maintain road that winds through the forest and proved to be a very pleasant drive. We were quite pleased to have missed the more direct routing of 97 through Klamath Falls.

Eventually, we made it to our intended destination. (The astute reader will note we arrived from the south. This was actually taken on the drive out of the park).

Crater Lake was largely inaccessible due to snow. We arrived at the main visitor center and Maia headed directly for the snow. She wasn’t all that interested in it during the winter, but now it was suddenly fun.

After Maia soaked her shoes enough, we were able to take in the view.

And then Maia found new obstacles to play on.

Did I mention there was still snow?

We stopped at one of the overlooks on the north side of the lake and had a nice picnic snack while Maia ventured off in search of more obstacles. What she got was a spank’n when she refused to stop going toward the road.

More Crater Lake photos in the gallery.

We had a short drive from the lake to Chemult where we had a most unfortunate reservation at the Dawson House Lodge. Let’s just say, pictures posted on the net don’t tell the whole story and hide lots of cleanliness sins that change one’s perspective upon arrival. It was across the street from a truck stop and the lack of AC made for a long night of jake brakes through the open window as the truckers came and went. To add insult to injury, there was only one restaurant open in town and they clearly had no worries about any competition. Diner was edible, but left plenty to be desired beyond that. Maia was the smartest of us — all she’d eat were pre-packaged Saltine crackers.

The best thing about Chemult, was leaving the next day.

2200 miles, not counting side trips. We are looking at ~14 days time. Traveling with Maia (2 years old), we trying to keep any one day’s driving to less than 6 hours.