We've enjoyed visiting quite a few national parks on our U.S. road trip, partly because we bought the annual pass for $80, but mostly because we always seem to enjoy natural sights better than man made ones. I'll probably post a top-10 kind of thing about the stuff we've seen on the trip after we get back home, and those will most likely include places like the Chitwan National Park in Nepal, the Iguazu Falls in Argentina and Yellowstone in the U.S. We like to hear things roar, be it a Bengal tiger, a waterfall or a geyser. We also like the quiet places, like the only national park in Oregon.

Crater Lake is known for its very blue water, all of which comes solely from rainfall and melting snow. The site of an ancient volcano, now a lake in the bottom of a caldera, is easily reached from I-5 in a few different ways. We were coming from Grants Pass, where we'd spent the night on a Walmart's parking lot. Whether that was allowed or not is beyond us since one staff member told us it was not advised while three said that it was completely fine. From Grants Pass we followed I-5 south until exit 40 where we got on highway 234 and eventually highway 62. That brought us all the way to Crater Lake National Park, where we showed our annual pass to avoid having to pay the $10 entrance fee, bringing the total value of our pass to $110, thus saving us $30! We stopped at the surprisingly busy Steel Visitor Center to ask a ranger which trails would be recommended for people who were just passing by. Directing our attention to the park newspaper he recommended hiking the trail to Garfield Peak where we would have panoramic views of the crater after a strenuous climb with 1010 feet (308 meters) elevation gain. Another option would have been taking the only trail that descends into the canyon, the Cleetwood Cove trail, but we didn't feel like going for a swim in the chilly water. Even though the last time the lake froze over was in 1949, the 43 feet (13 meters) of annual snowfall make sure the water stays nice and cool.

In addition to a lot of snow the park also gets a lot of visitors, about 500 000 per year. Considering that much of it is closed during the winter that means a whole lot of people during the summer. We hadn't expected that the nation's deepest lake would interest so many, but apparently it does. This was excessively clear as we were trying to find a place to park at near Crater Lake Lodge where our trailhead lay. Driving a small RV we would have appreciated the RV-only parking places to be occupied by something else than small sedans, but luckily we were able to park our 19 feet long "Harvey" in a regular parking spot in the end. With that done we finally got out to see the lake.

You would expect that a lake known mostly for being very blue to be very blue. Turns out it is VERY blue. When we first saw it there was not a cloud in the sky and the 4.5 to 6 mile (7 to 10 kilometers) diameter expanse of water was perfectly still, reflecting the blue above it. Only that it was bluer. When some clouds formed later in the afternoon the lake took more colors, ranging from a pale blue in the sunny distance to a deliciously dark blue closer in the shade. In some places it was exactly the color of the Finnish Fazerin Sininen (Fazer's Blue) chocolate wrappings. It was truly amazingly very very blue.

We took to following our planned path that started from behind the lodge. The trail took us up a hill that wasn't too steep but none the less gave us great views of the lake for most of the way. The best view was obviously from the top, which was the end of the trail, but there were quite a few people there enjoying it with us. From the peak we could see pretty much all of the lake at once, including the "small" Phantom Ship rock formation constituting the second island protruding from the water. This made us wonder if it would be a good idea to just skip going all the way around the lake and just head back towards I-5 the shorter way, by following the rim on the western side past Wizard Island until the highway intersection. In the end we decided to do the shorter version, but only after a good while of taking in the view from Garfield Peak.

According to our newly bred plan we headed northwest after returning to our car. Following the advice from the park newspaper we stopped at a couple of "must see" viewpoints along the way, but truth be told the views from the lodge parking lot and especially the hill were better. Still, Discovery Point was nice since it was right about there were white men first discovered the lake and Watchman Overlook gave a better view to Wizard Island than other places did. By then the weather had turned somewhat cloudy so we figured that it might be time to get going and headed towards North Junction where we turned left and lost sight of the lake for good. Luckily we got to view another cool lake on our way towards Salem, when we stopped at a viewpoint of Diamond Lake. For some reason the water seemed to sparkle and glimmer in the distance, just like a diamond would.

We followed the scenic highway 138 all the way to Roseburg where it intersected with I-5 and took that north from there. With nothing particularly interesting to see this far south in Oregon we had decided to try and make it back to my exchange year host parents and sleep on their yard before heading out again. According to our AAA map the distance between Crater Lake and Salem could be covered in five hours, so it was a bit of a drive. Quite surprisingly we did it in that time even though we were driving and RV. Of course I'm not counting in our dinner stop, when I introduced Sini to Taco Bell. As far as American fast food joints go that might just be the best place to grab a quick meal on the road. A box with three different items and a drink cost just $5 and was a lot more filling than a normal hamburger and fries type of meal.

It was almost ten p.m. before we pulled into the driveway in Salem but we got a great reception anyway. Our hosts were keen to hear about everything we had been doing, particularly so since for some reason this blog hadn't notified them about the entries I posted in Las Vegas. That had forced them to soak in the Jacuzzi without anything to read about! What a horrible fate… I was just glad to learn that there are actually people who look forward to reading these things without even being part of my immediate family. Then again I'm not sure if that applies with our hosts since they once again treated us like family. We had made it to their yard a couple of days earlier than our original plan was and were heading out again in the morning. With so little time left on our road trip we wanted to make sure we didn't find ourselves too far from Portland on our last day on the road. Hence we were planning on using the same safe haven on our last night as well.