Crater Lake

We stayed home on Labor Day weekend.. had family over.. visited family.. relaxed.. and then the boys had their first days of school, extra curricular classes resumed and we have started to fall back into out routines. I posted their first day of school pictures on Instagram
Coming back to our summer vacation.. it all started in Portland, then a day along the Oregon Coast. We spent the night in Florence. We woke up the next morning.. again relatively early and started the 4 hour drive to Crater Lake. We made a quick stop for some coffee and donuts. Two 16oz cappuccino's and a giant glazed doughnut roll all for a whopping $3.50. 

It was a hot hazy day. When we got closer to Crater Lake we learnt that because of the heat there had been a few forest fires in the area. Unfortunately that resulted in lack of clarity the day of and in the pictures.

We decided to only drive the rim.. 

We had gotten the boys binoculars and they loved them.

Did you know Crater Lake is a caldera lake? A caldera forms when a volcano implodes creating a crater. Crater Lake was formed 150 years ago by the collapse of the volcano Mount Mazama. It is considered the deepest lake in the United States and 9th in the world. The lake features two small islands, Wizard Island where tour boats dock and you can get off and explore further on your own. The other much smaller island is knows as Ship Wreck.

As seen above are the pinnacles. While not part of the lake, they are part of Crater Lake National Park, these towering needle-like formations of rock are called fossil fumaroles. After the volcano's collapse all the hot gases and steam trapped beneath the ground needed to be released so these vents were created. Slowly thanks to erosion the rock around the vents fell away leaving us with these unique pinnacles. (sorry for the geography lessons.. M and I just found it all so fascinating)

We headed back north.. a 4 hour drive to Cascade Locks. We hit traffic.. had to stop to eat and before we knew it it was getting dark, the roads winding.. especially when we entered the Mount Hood area and we had no service and while we didn't say it then we were both thinking the same truth.. if something were to happen to us no one would ever know. I know it seems morbid but when we finally reached our destination, tucked in the boys and got into bed we talked about how scary that was.. I knew we were driving cliff side.. not knowing how great the drop was on the other side.. (we drove that same road the next morning and the drop was steep!) barely any cars passed us.. what exactly are you supposed to do in such a circumstance. We thought we should start checking in with a family member.. but we didn't want to worry anyone unnecessarily.. In the end we decided to time thing better and make sure we are never on the road (especially that kind of road) that late.. 

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