Day Eleven - Thursday

Well, tonight finds us in our last night in a hotel. Tomorrow will be our last day on the road as we make it to Seattle and that means home for Kathryn. We will be at her house tomorrow night and then my mom will fly into Seattle on Saturday and Sunday we will begin the much quicker, less adventurous journey back to MN and then I will continue on to Milwaukee. But, on to the adventures of the day.


We left Central Point, Oregon a half hour ahead of schedule this morning...we were quite proud of ourselves. After hitting the grocery store for some much needed fresh fruit we have been craving we hit the road to Crater Lake. It was another one of those "scenic routes" which meant it was beautiful but a narrow curvy mountain road a lot of the way. We went through a variety of state and national forests along the way as well. We got to Crater National Park a little before 11:00am. Before we paid to enter we began seeing snow on the ground. And not just little random piles, I mean snow cover. So, we should have known adventure may lie ahead. When we entered the park we discovered our timing was just right. The ranger said that most of the rim was closed, but the west rim drive would be opening today at noon. And that was the direction we wanted to go to get out of the park.


So, we headed to the visitor center where we watched a short video about the finding of the lake and snow removal. They apparently get a lot of snow each year. The snow removal which begins in April doesn't end until mid-May and that still leaves piles of snow which can last until July. After stopping to get a spectacular view of an absolutely beautiful lake we got in line to wait for the ranger to open the road. At noon, as promised, the ranger opened the road and he led a line of cars towards the exit to the park. As we drove out we were surrounded by walls of snow on either side. It was absolutely crazy to see that much snow.


We eventually, after another scenic drive, made it back to the freeway and to civilization. From there it was a couple hours to the Portland area where once again we had impeccable timing and hit rush hour traffic. After stopping to get gas at the second they pump your gas for you station of the day, which by the way freaked me out, we sat in traffic for quite some time and eventually ended up in Vancouver. Washington welcomed us at 5:41 pm. We found a hotel on the north side of Vancouver...a Holiday Inn Express for the 3rd time on our trip...we've come to like them. After discovering that there were no movies and no good shows to watch on TV we decided to go see a movie.


We ventured into Vancouver and found a theatre despite bad directions. We saw "Georgia Rule" which was a great movie. Now, we're waiting for pizza from some very crabby sounding pizza people.


Tomorrow we will head out early enough to bypass Seattle before rush hour traffic and head to Kathryn's house. We are anxious to cook and eat a homemade meal after what will be 12 days and over 4,000 miles on the road. Well, pizza's here...that's all for tonight.


Quote of the day:
"The world is a book and those who do not travel read only a page." - St. Augustine


Mormon Fun Fact of the day:
Mormonism is the richest religion in the United States


Questions to Ponder:
~How does Crater Lake not overflow?
~Umpqua - person, place, thing? (it's the name of a river, park, bank, schools, etc in Oregon)
~What is the 45th parallel and why is it important?