Sunrise over Crater Lake.

Waterfall

Scott crawled out of the tent in the early twilight at 5:20 for a forty-one mile bike ride around Crater Lake.  The ride took him three hours.  He mentioned it was a tough ride, but beautiful. Thankfully he did not see very many cars.  He was not worried, but I was.  There was no shoulder on the road and it was quite a steep drop off the edge.    As we were driving out of the park up the steep road Scott had ridden on, he commented, “Wow!  This is so much easier in a car!”

April, the fly swatting ninja

The picture above and on the left was a bad decision turned into a funny moment.  I left the tent open as I was carrying the large duffel bags of our sleeping materials out of the tent.  Then I got distracted by breakfast and forgot that the tent was open until I went back to take it down.  The tent had become infested with bees, wasps, horse flies, mosquitoes, tiny flies, and just about every flying creature that makes Crater Lake home.  I was tempted to just zip them all up and squish them into the tent bag, but we have learned that flying creatures stuck in the tent rip the screens in their attempt to escape.  So, armed with a fly swatter I spent five minutes cleaning up my mess.  I have to say I am something of a fly swatting ninja.  Brooke was loving the show and Scott thought a picture was in order to remember the entertainment I provided everyone.

Along Route 97 en route from Crater Lake to Bend Scott spotted Newberry National Volcanic Monument.  It just became a monument in 1990.  This wasn’t a planned stop, but we are glad we made the stop.  First we headed to the visitor’s center in search of a movie and the Junior Ranger activities.  We missed the movie by a half hour and the ranger talks weren’t for quite a while.  We utilized the exhibits to complete the Junior Ranger books.  We noticed this booklet included a question from yesterday’s book at Crater Lake: what is the difference between a ground squirrel and a chipmunk?  Do you know the differences?  The main differences are that the chipmunk has a stripe on his face and the ground squirrel does not and while the ground squirrel is larger he does not climb tress.

A molar from a mammoth. Notice it is bigger than both of the kid’s heads.

View from Lava Butte

We were given a pass to visit the top of the Newberry Park at Lava Butte from 1:15 – 1:45.  After a short drive we hiked a short but steep hike.

Newberry National Volcanic Monument was named after Dr. John Newberry, “a great American scientist,” who lived from 1822 – 1892.  Newberry (the volcano not the man :-) erupted several times, but the two largest eruptions were 300,000 and 80,000 years ago.  The last eruption emptied the magma chamber (sound familiar – this is what happened to Mount Mazama at Crater Lake).   Newberry collapsed into a caldera that is now 4.5 miles in diameter.

After our visit to the visitor’s center and the Lava Butte we stopped for a lunch of completely random items: pistachios, cheese, turkey, yogurt, Wheat Thins, and cantaloupe.  While eating lunch we decided it would be fun to visit the lava caves.

Cody was oh so excited for the cave since he was not able to be part of the Oregon Caves tour.  The temperature in the caves was 44 degrees.  It was quite a shock compared to the over ninety degree outside temperature.  Cody and I spent some time just watching our breath. The lava tube we were in was 5,466 feet long.

It is crazy to think that we were walking through a  cave that carried 2,000 degree lava.  Most caves I have been in have had some sort of artificial light installed. There was no artificial light in the cave at all. Cody happily wore his new head lamp. His old head lamp died a few weeks back. Brooke’s head lamp was mostly dead so she and I traded. There were quite a few stairs. I only carried Cody for a little bit on the way back, but he did most of it on his own.  Brooke wasn’t as impressed by this cave as she was the Oregon Caves.  I asked her to explain why.  She liked that the Oregon Caves had a tour guide, stalactites and stalagmites, bones from ancient animals, and the tour was a lot longer.  I can understand her argument. However, the short hike was perfect for Cody and it was free and on our own schedule.  We are thankful that we have been able to visit so many caves.  A lot of caves east of the Mississippi River are closed due to the white nose fungus that is acting like a small pox epidemic to the bats.  The bat population is being wiped out right now.  Besides enjoying watching them swoop down and squeak in the twilight, I appreciate that bats get rid of those pesky mosquitoes.

We arrived in Bend sometime between two and three.  The librarian in the children’s section was incredibly helpful.  She told us some great places to camp, canoe, and eat.  I mentioned that we had been out to eat less than a handful of times in a month and a half.  She mentioned again if we were interested to try Pizza Mondo.  Surprisingly Scott said yes to eating out.  I ate so much I really don’t want to look at food again for a long time.  Brooke ate more than I did.  She almost ate two gigantic slices just like Scott.  Cody managed one gigantic piece. We think this makes the fourth time we ate out in 40 days: Lambert’s (with Ed and family), Denny’s (4th of July), and Rancho de Chimayo.

Smith Rocks

Brooke pretty much lived on this climbing structure while Scott and I chatted with two teachers who had taught in Japan for a year and a half and were now teaching in Portland. Cody was quite smitten with “the lady in the blue shirt”.  He showed her all his monster trucks and made a race track for her and him.  He even shared a yellow Skittle with her as he found out they were her favorite.  I splurged on a rather large bag of Skittles a week or so ago.  I have hidden them because I seem to be the only one who can handle one handful at a time. Every now and then the kids and Scott go on a giggly fest raiding the Skittles.  They are quite silly.

It only cost $10 to camp here and free showers are included.  Super deal!  Some of the California State Parks charged $35 and did not even include a shower.  You had to share a cooking area with everyone which was good for meeting people who all enjoyed climbing and camping.  You also had to carry your tent and sleeping gear into the camping area which was about five hundred feet depending on what kind of a view and privacy you wanted.  With all our camping gear in two duffle bags and the tent already being in a backpack type bag this was not really a challenge for us.

We had some incredible views.