Boy, have we been poor bloggers this time!!! This is the first time we've had coverage in almost a week. We left Laura and Nick's last Saturday and drove south toward Mt. Hood in Oregon. Along the way we took a drive through the Mt. Adams Wilderness area and had lunch with this wonderful view of Mt. Adams! We camped just past Mt. Hood that evening at a great NF campground. Sunday morning we got up and drove through the John Day Fossil Monument. That was very interesting. There were three different sections, one where you actually saw leaf fossils in place, a second where there was a wonderful Paleontology Museum and the third stunning painted hills. Pictures of that to follow. Camped at another NF campground right on Achonoco Pass - little chilly in the morning! Then off to Crater Lake NP.
We have just spent two magnificent days at Crater Lake National Park. The weather was spectacular and the reflections stunning!
This was the first view of the Crater. The water is incredibly blue and the reflections incredible. It sound like we were very lucky with our weather. John asked one of the Rangers if the lake was always this smooth and he said in all the years he'd worked here, he couldn't remember three days of this level of calm. We climbed up Watchman's Peak to watch the sunset. Though there were no clouds, it was still incredible.
The next morning we got a picture of this lone tree on a ledge. that blue is the water in the lake, not the sky. 
And this is Phantom Ship Island. It's small and hides well in the vastness of the Lake (deepest lake in the world). It's a very compelling place....we kept returning to see it. This was from a viewpoint at the end of Sun Lodge trail. The whole day was amazing. One incredible view after another. A photographer's delight! Late yesterday afternoon we unpacked the car onto the table at the campsite in search of our little resident mouse. We cleaned up all the shredded toilet paper he had left the night before and tossed the munched on granola bar. John thought he had seem a blur of him when he opened the door, but after a thorough emptying of the car and search under seats and in the storage area in the back, we found no mouse. Needless to say when we got up this morning, more shredded TP. Guess he really like our car! John's off buying a mouse trap as I'm writing this! We're off to the Redwoods today. Finally hit the big town of Medford though, so needed to at least get a short blog done so you all didn't think we'd fallen in a lake or down a mountain! All is well and we're having a marvelous time! Will fill in all the blanks and put on more pictures when we do a slow down, do laundry and have access soon.
