Crater Lake

Here we are at the end of our day. The camera took this picture itself, so we had a couple of laughs trying to get that to happen.

The drive around the rim is 33 miles of winding, up and down mountain sides, skinny little roads, but the pull outs were often and we stopped for all the sights. We even stopped for a little lunch in a very cozy little picnic area. There wasn't much for ground cover, a lot of the pinkish red leafy plants, a little of the green with with purple floweres, and a little of the small yellow flowers. There were a lot of trees, however.

Crater Lake

We took another day trip to Crater Lake, interesting geology and spectacular scenery. We entered on the north side and passed through the Pumice Desert, 100 feet deep pumice so very little vegetation grows there at all. Crater Lake is about six miles of caved in volcano. This is Wizard Island, a smaller crater in the lake. We are at the north side, way up high looking down, and it is very cold (about 54 degrees) this morning.

Thousand Trails--Bend/Sunriver

We left Salem and traveled over the mountains to the high desert of Bend, Oregon. We're parked among the trees (no satellite here) but have a beautiful backyard. The mountain on the left is Bachelor Mountain, then South Sister, and Broken Top.

We spent a day doing the Newbery National Volcanic Monument which encompasses the Lava River Cave, the Big Obsidian Flow, Paulina and East Lakes, crater buttes, and lava flows. It was fascinating to walk the mile through a solidified lava tube until the sand just filled it up. It was amazing to see the huge pile of obsidian that sparkled black glass everywhere. And the beds of rocky black lava that flowed for acres around small hills where the only trees grew was hard to imagine. I'd have pictures of all that, but I forgot the camera.

Much of the time we are just taking it easy, a day of this, then a day of that.

The end of Rally Evenings

After Happy Hour and a very nice meal to close up the Rally, we find Audry has lost her maracas to a set of jugs and Gerry looks on in amazement one more time! It's campfire time (without the campfire). But we do have Connie on the guitar; we try to remember the lyrics to old tunes, and with more wine no one seems to mind that most of us can't sing, and the circle grows bigger. Finally, the night security guy joins us because everyone else has gone to bed. It was another good rally.

More Rally Evenings

The last night is always a good time. This year two of the four "table couples" purchased new coaches and were in the drawing for $10,000. Jerry and Marilyn bought a new Signature which they will pick up in Oregon in November and Marlene with hubby Renny, who was out doing the walk through in their new Diplomat, was excited with her $2000 check.

More Rally Evenings

Even though it was a slow dance, comfortable shoes are a must!

What comes next?