Crater Lake NP

Crater Lake NP is as blue as any picture you have ever seen of the lake.  We drove all the way around and took so many pictures cause I just could not believe how blue the water was and how blue the sky was.  No smog here!  Even the smoke from the fires were not able to obscure the view.  The water was so perfect that I really wanted to get on it and ski.

Here I am standing on the edge of the cliff with Wizard Island in the background.  Wizard Island is the one of 2 places where you can get near the water and swim.  No one swims for long cause the water is so cold.

Capturing the shoreline

Thru the trees

Wizard Island

Phantom Ship

Wizard Island and Phantom Ship are the only land masses across the whole lake.  There were two boats on the lake that are tour boats and they were so small compared to the size of the lake and you are up so high from the water surface that you could barely see them and their wakes hardly rippled the water.

Puffy white clouds

I was very impressed with the landscape around the lake and the blue of the sky was so crisp until you looked at the lake – that is blue!  The puffy white clouds offered a contrast to the sky and their reflection on the lake was very cool.

Enough beautiful pictures.  We also do other things besides tour around.  One of the men in our group likes to roast  others in our crowd on campouts so this time it was the guys!  He actually teased a bit but then he presented each guy with a beautiful fire stick that he handcrafted.  The other guys got sticks with an agate from Port Orford beach that he had found on the beach and polished into a beautiful rock that he put on the tip of the stick – Paul got a river rock cause we kept talking about Missiouri!  It is a very cool stick and if you ever come camping with us you will get to see Paul using his stick!

Right after we decided that our group dinner would be at 5:30 pm Mother Nature decided it would be a good time to open up the skies.   We had 1/2 inch hail for more than 20 minutes and then the rain started along with beautiful lightening and thunder.  Paul got out the umbrella and went out into the storm.

1/2 inch hail

The picture doesn’t quite show well but it was really fun.  We spent 3 months in Branson Missiouri and with every storm they tell us that we were going to get golf ball sized hail and we never did so we were so excited to get this storm.  There are more storms in the forecast so we will be sitting on our porch watching.

I feel like we are living in the fastlane this week!  Our group is 5 couples and everytime we sit down to eat we start planning the next meal.  We are going to need to do some major exercising when we get back to CA.  I think we have seen all the sights of Port Orford and tonight was a personal favorite – the local movie theatre!  Port Orford is a community of less that 1200 residents so I was amazed when there were other people in the theatre besides our group.  The feature film was Ice Age 3 and was very cute!  It even prompted laughter from the men!!!!

A nice little theatre and the popcorn was reasonable.  While waiting for the traffic to thin we caught another interesting site.

I love the Tow vehicle

The license plate on the Porsche says “Y Speed”.  A California Plate.  I would have liked to see this driving down the highway.

We do get out a little for some fresh air and some walking.  The coastline here in this area of Oregon is spectacular.  I keep trying to capture it on film.

Cape Blanco Lighthouse in Port Orford had some of the most amazing views.  We got to climb the 60+ stairs up to the lightbulb.  The light was on and it was hard to look into the bulb as it is so bright.

Cape Blanco Lighthouse

Looking into the lense

View from the lighthouse