Day 7: Northern Oregon Coast
At 5:30 we made it to Crater
Lake National Park. They charge $10 per vehicle for a 7-day pass. The road
on the west side of the lake was still closed. They didn't think it would open
this year until mid-July. It stayed overcast, but no more rain. There was snow
along the side of the road. As we got to higher elevation, the snow on the side
of the road was higher than our truck. We stopped a few times when we first
entered the park to take pictures of hoodoos across a canyon. We stopped at
Mazama Village to ask about campsites. The Mazama Campground has about 200 sites
but due to the snow level only 60 were being used. At 6 pm about 10 sites were
still available. We continued on to the Visitor Center which was closed (open
9 am to 5 pm). We went to the Rim Village where we got a good view of Crater
Lake. The Lake was different shades of dark blue. This is the deepest lake in
North America. There is an island called Wizard Island. For somre reason they
have stopped taking hikers by boat over to this small island that has a steep
mountain. 
The Rim Village has a Lodge, gift shop and a couple restaurants. The Watchman
was serving a dinner buffet until 10 pm for $10, (the price included a drink
and dessert). Shawna got her fill of fruit and Jacob had 2 or 3 bowls of soup.
It was pretty good, but maybe we were just hungry. We left arouind 8:30pm. taking
highway 138 East to 97. The town of Chemult had several small motels, restaurants
and gas stations. We continued North to Bend and found a room at the Blue Spruce
Motel around 9:30 pm. This was a small motel close to the highway. The room
was well sound-proofed. The rates were very reasonable ($38 for two beds) and
it was across from Jakes, a 24-hour truckstop, which was highly recommended
by the hotel clerk. 550 Miles today 2050 Total
On
highway 138 again we would turn right and go south on highway 230 which would
eventually follow the Rogue River. This is also forested area with nice scenery
along the river. The first town we would stop at was Prospect which had a store,
post office, church and the historic Prospect Hotel and Motel. One of our guidebooks
says that such famous people as Teddy Roosevelt and Jack London have stayed
here. It is both a hotel and a motel, with the hotel being the historic part
and motel being much newer. There were waterfalls close by. A 1/2 mile trail
took us to Mill Creek Falls and Berr Creek Falls. These were larger falls then
what we had seen as the Rogue River had formed a small canal. There was another
trail from the same parking lot that went to the Avenue of Boulders. These were
suppose to be some huge boulders in the middle of the river. During the 1920's
they were lite up at night. A sign warned of sudden changes in the water level.
Lost
Creek Lake was a large, prestine lake that looked man-made. As we were driving
we stopped to take a picture of a dog and cow that just stared at us. It was
as if they had never had picture taken of them before, Oh well. We took the
picture and they look confused. The Rogue River area reminded us of the Carmel
Valley and Big Sur. The small communities of Rogue Elk and Shady Cove had lots
of businesses and motels directed toward tourist. At Shady Cove, pop. 2000,
the gas station attendant noted that we were a long ways from home. We tried
not to snicker. The towns of Eagle Point and White City, suburbs of Medford,
looked pretty new. Driving thru Medford from the northeast, had the same new
suburb-look with lots of malls. The older, downtown section seemed rather dull.
We did pass the Ginger Roger Theatre, wondering how they came up with that name.
We finally got to Ashland at 6 pm. Coming in from the north the town looked a lot different that it did when we were here in December coming home from California. We couldn't find any street parking, but got lucky and found a free four hour parking lot. We walked around town, stopped in a bookstore. Some of the stores were starting to close up. We liked the restaurant we ate at last time we were here, Macaroni's. But we decided we wanted to try a different restaurant this time and hopefully one that wasn't real expensive. We finally decided to go the the Standing Stone Brewing Co. They served lots of beer and bar-type food. Dale had a spicy barbequed chicken and I had a rueben sandwich. The food and service were good and the bill was only around $30. We asked the waitress what bars she would recommend in town. She suggested the Cat Walk later tonight and O'Ryan's, an Irish pub. We got lost finding O'Ryan's and had to ask a couple people for directions. We were looking for the typical green associated with anything Irish, but the outside was black instead. It was more a local hangout wih pool tables and games. After ten o'clock they serve $1 beers.
At 9:30 we decided to drive to Klamath Falls and spend the night there. This was an hour and half drive. We couldn't see much in the dark, but it looked like it would have been a nice drive in the daytime through a lot of wooded valleys. There didn't appear to be any towns between Ashland and Klamath Falls. We got to Klamath Falls at 11:00 and Dale found the EconoLodge he had stayed at once before. They charged us $40. We drove around town and found it mostly shut down. We stopped at Waldo's Tavern & Mongolian Grill. It sounded like an interesting combination, unfortuanately the grill was closed. The bar did serve sake and plum wine. We left after a couple drinks and drove back to our room.
We drove 450 miles today, 700 total