Crater Lake, The Shapiros and Big News

We set out from Crescent City and drove through even more Redwoods before crossing into Oregon. The pine forests in Oregon just go on forever! They are very dense here so you have the feeling of driving down a long, very thin corridor of road totally engulfed by these beautiful trees. Ok, another National Park, can you believe it? Crater lake was formed when a giant volcano erupted, then collapsed in on itself. Slowly, the snow and rain filled this abyss with water. At it's deepest point, it is well over 1900 feet deep. The water appears an extremely bright blue due to the depth of the lake. I wish I could remember the diameter of the lake, because it was huge. There was only one place on the rim where the lake was accessible ( after a very long hike down ), and that was used as a base for excursion boats. But when standing on the opposite rim, the boats were barely visible in the water and the trail and piers were not visible at all.

After Crater Lake we drove north to Sun River ( just below Bend, OR ). Our friends the Shapiros ( Lynne and Alan, better known to many as "The Beezers" ), were vacationing there. It was wonderful to see them. The next day we went hiking at a nearby state park with some beautful rock formations. It is often a site for rockclimbers, but we declined that excitement. The hike was challenging enough as the temp climbed into the upper 90s that afternoon while we were hiking. I guess we should have started out earlier, but we had had too much fun the night before for that.

Thursday found us driving west to Eugene, OR. This is the home of the University of Oregon and possibly the running capital of the US.


But enough of all this travel nonsense - we have some really important news!!! We were thrilled to get a call from Will informing us that he and Heather are expecting their first child! Hence, we are expecting our first grandchild - Oh my gosh - can you believe it!!? How cool is that? We are sooo excited. I might add that Aunt Greta is pretty excited too!!

So here we are, smiling ear to ear, signing off for now. Take care, all of you out there - but especially you Heather!

SF, Mendocino and the CA Coast

We really enjoyed spending the day in San Francisco with Nancy. We took a long walk along the cliffs bordering the Pacific from Land's End to the Cliff House. It was a beautiful day so the scenery was spectacular. Later in the afternoon we wandered around the area near Katelyn's place, had a little al fresco wine and olives and then a light dinner. Back on Fillmore we stopped for dessert and some time at the cafe.

After saying our goodbyes to Nancy, we shot over to Sausalito and had breakfast at a nice, sunny place with a cool view of the misty city. We headed north along the coast highway for quite a while and caught lots of switchbacks with clifftop views of a rough, windy Pacific. The views from Muir Beach were amazing. We switched over to “the” 101 after a while and made it to Mendocino around 4:00.

Mendocino was just what we needed - looks like a quaint New England village - small and quiet - as one guy there said "no where to go and no one in a hurry to get there". We lucked out by getting a room in "The Blair House" a beautiful old B and B built in 1888. We soon learned that it is the house used as Jessica Fletcher's home in the old TV show "Murder She Wrote". Mendocino was the location of the fictitious Cabot Cove. By the way, our room in Blair house contained the most comfortable bed we have ever slept in - bar none! But I digress, Mendocino sits on headlands that overlook the craggy cliffs of the Pacific, with a beautiful beach just around the south side of town. It was cool and breezy our entire stay, perfect for walking around the headlands and kicking back. We decided to stay a second day. Sunday night, the Persiod meteor showers were due so we set an alarm for 2AM and crept out of the B+B to go down to the cliffs and watch. Wow I haven't seen a starry sky like that since the badlands. We enjoyed the meteors but have to admit that we cut the show short because we were not prepared for how chilly ( cold ) it was.

Monday morning we left Mendocino and drove up the California coast to more and more spectacular scenery. Coupled with that we had the treat of going to several sections of the Humboldt state and national parks that contain the Coastal Redwoods. These are sisters to the great Sequoias. The Sequioas have wider trunks but the coastal redwoods are taller. The groves of redwoods in the cosatal forests were amazing and wonderful to walk and drive through.

Monday night was spent in Crescent City, a beachtown and commercial fishing port on the northern end of CA. We are looking forward to Oregon, Crater Lake and the Shapiros!