Our first destination on our road trip was Crater Lake. (Actually, it was the Woodburn Outlet Mall for some Merrells. Oregon has no sales tax… !). The drive was lovely, lovely, lovely. The northwest of the USA is beautiful.

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We stayed our first night at the Union Creek Resort in a log cabin! Our particular cabin had been there for about eighty years. It had no TV, no phone, no internet – so good. It was rickety, and the bedrooms were reached by ascending a narrow rickety staircase, but I enjoyed it nevertheless. It was surrounded by beautiful tall trees, and it held the ten of us. (Steve posing as only he can do).

Beckie’s Restaurant, where we had our ‘first night on the road’ dinner. It was right next to our cabin.

The lodge!  Following dinner, we discovered a games room containing a pool table.  That kept John, Steve and the kids occupied for a while.  During this time, I set myself the challenge of creating a noble fire in old iron stove back at the cabin.  This I achieved, to my great satisfaction.  Brenna and I then sat back and enjoyed the peace for a while.

Morning capers. And no, we didn’t have wine for breakfast…

The next morning we headed off on the last few kms to Crater Lake. Before we left, however, we launched our exercise regime of aiming to do a certain amount of push-ups or crunches per day. This excellent plan lasted about a day for me, but Steve, Brenna and John kept it up diligently. Look at Brenna’s form – and she can push them out. That girl is amazing!

This is Crater Lake – look at it!!  Photos can’t do it justice.  In fact most of my photos won’t do justice to the stunning places we visited.   Crater Lake’s blue-ness is remarkable, and it’s so clear and deep and contained and unexpected.  All of a sudden the lake is there. We had lovely weather that day, though a little crisp. We pulled out our woollies for the first and only time during the trip.

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Almost 600 metres deep.  After spending some quality time with the lake, we stopped by the gift shop on the way out (the first of many gift shop visits along the trip, as it turned out).  Erin and I sneaked back for one last goodbye to the lake before we left.

After Crater Lake we headed down to San Francisco, overnighting in Corning on the way. Just over the California border (which, incidentally, isn’t as pedantic about fruit crossing the border as we thought – which we discovered after we hastily consumed more mandarins than is good for anyone in short order. Actually very funny) we drove past this mountain that just seemed to pop up out of nowhere. This is Mt Shasta, an active volcano in Siskiyou County, and I guess it’s no surprise really, given that this region is part of the Ring of Fire. It was a striking and beautiful sight as we drove along.

In and Out Burger had been recommended to us by several people, so we had dinner at the first one we came across. They were right – it’s actually really tasty for fast food. Plus, they cut and cook their fries per order – actual potatoes!
This is a pic of our hire car that we named Tylie (after the two Hertz ladies who accomplished every trick in the Hertz book to get the Australian men a great deal), and the Team May car. Poor Matty was unwell that night, but he (and his amazing parents) soldiered on.