What to do??? Part II

What do we do on our days off. Remember special events without a picture:

Our last afternoon at the lighthouse ended with a special "shared moment" with a group on my tour.

It was the last tour of the afternoon. There were three gentleman, two brothers and a son of the older brother. The son was probably in his late twenties.

They were there in remberance of their 94 year old mother/grandmother who had just passed away.

After the tour they shared their growing up years in Florence and their memories at the lighthouse beach and the lighthouse itself. The older bother told his son how he and his mother were enjoying the beach ..as teenagers do....and when they went to leave he found out his car was out of gas! He had to knock on the door of the family in the big house to call his dad. His dad brought the gas and nothing more was said.

They also talked about knowing the family that started the Sea Lion Den's tourist attraction and also how their grandfather had driven over the mountains to deliver milk.

The event was just a special moment honoring their mother and I was privileged to be part of that.

Now picture events of our days off .......

We had heard before and after arriving to the campground to be sure to go to Crater Lake while we are so close.

So we did. We rented a cabin in Mazama Village.and we were on our way.

It is a climb of about 7,000 ft and the terrain was not how I expected. It was more like high desert.

We were told it would be cold both by friends at home and friends at camp. By the time we made our way up  it was 91. Needless to say I was not dressed for the occasion!

My description of Crater Lake: Awesome, Mysterious and a bit spooky! By the way driving up we were right on the rim.......bothGary and I were white knuckling it as we drove up.

I will let you be the judge of Crater Lake .....take a look.

It is the belly of a volcano,Mt. Mazama, that erupted 7,700 years ago

Wizard Island

The white pines added to the mystery of the area.

Our cabin in the woods. Note how th big doors close off the entry to the rooms during the winter It gets 533 inches of snow yearly. This cabin may not even be visible at that time.

We had an enjoyable meal at The Lodge. We even sat out on the porch looking at the this very still, very quiet, very blue lake.

So went our adventure at Crater Lake. Oh, I might add it was 91 degrees when we arrived and 50 degrees at 8:00 am when we left.

As we drove back we made some discoveries of our own.

Breakfast at Beckie's Cafe. It is part of Union Creek Resort. It was an iimportant camping spot on the road to connecting Rogue River Valley and Crater Lake. It was named after Ed Becklehymer who operated the restraunts and gas station.  It just took me back to those western days. Gary and I decided if we ever come back in this area we would rent a cabin here......we loved it!

More adventures of ours days off in my next blog.