We were rejuvenated crossing the border from California into Oregon (if you didn’t read about our drama surrounding the rain in northern California you can catch up here). The view of the Smith River on the drive in made us remember exactly why we heart Oregon (Bend, Oregon is our first true possible forever home site).
When you full time RV, you have to get a feel for how much distance you and your road posse can handle without going nuts. Some people are destination driven and don’t mind full eight to ten hour days of driving to get to the places on their bucket list. Not us–if we go past the 6 hour mark we are likely to go into full meltdown mode at any time. So, we make it a point to plan stops with this drive time in mind to keep our crankiness at a minimum and our marriage (mostly) unscathed.
Following this logic, we had a plan in place for our arrival into Oregon. We were going to overnight at Cave Junction, investigate Oregon Caves National Monument the next morning and then head on up to Crater Lake National Park. However, driving into the sunshine and being mesmerized by the river made us rethink our plans. Our insides were screaming at us to keep driving past the caves (the town was barely a one horse, plus how could it be better than our first cave tour of this journey?), so we listened. We decided to drive a little over an hour more to hang out in Ashland, Oregon for a week and visit Crater Lake from there. We needed civilization for a bit…good weather, good food, and good wifi.
Once we decided to pass the caves (and made it out of the boonies into cell phone signal territory…constant struggle!), we whipped out good ole Google Maps. We proceeded to call every RV Park in the vicinity of Ashland and (yikes!) couldn’t find anything that had availability. We were starting to think our guts were wrong. We were losing hope thinking we were going to end up in a Wal-Mart parking lot for the night (which is fine when you need it, but not when you were looking forward to spending a week in a town). Fear not, Gary’s eagle eyes happened to see a brand spanking new RV Park as we were driving in to town. It just opened and was all green and pretty. You could practically see the skid marks where we pulled off the exit!
It was comforting to settle down and enjoy the week in Ashland doing some of our favorite things…
Being foodies
Hiking on new trails
Biking
It was exactly what we needed…our gut was on track after all.
Best thing we did?
Snowshoeing around Crater Lake. Okay, not the WHOLE lake. It is 33 miles around and I am pretty sure it would take days. That is if we didn’t fall down and freeze to death in either a tree well or a snow cornice as the rangers warned about with their scare tactics for tourists.
As we drove into the park we were expecting snow, but weren’t prepared for the sheer volume of snow! The average snowfall per year at Crater Lake is 500 inches. 500 inches! No wonder this is the deepest lake in the US.
We expected this to be a get out and see the beauty and get right back in kinda stop. However during the drive in, we tuned in to 1610 AM to listen to that obnoxiously scratchy announcement every park has and found out we could rent snowshoes to hike around the lake for only $16. Totally us! Thankfully, being former southern California peeps that are still afraid of a slight chill, we over-prepared with lots of layers of clothing.
As we rented our snowshoes and routed our course, we became intent on getting around to a couple of lookout points. It was about two miles to the second one, Wizard Island overlook. So, four miles total. No problem, we hike this distance all the time. However, as we climbed up the snow covered hill and viewed the vastness of Crater Lake we started to wonder if we should have packed a lunch and some survival supplies. About a mile in we realized that trudging in snowshoes and a bunch of warm ass clothes while huffing and puffing at altitude is not the same as hiking. It was brutal! We did make it (barely) to the first overlook, Discovery Point, but not without taking a hit. Gary broke a pole and gave up altogether on the snowshoes.
Even though it was tough, the beauty of Crater Lake surrounded by snow made it worth the arduous trek.
That is Wizard Island in the background by the way. Not sure that we missed anything at all by not making it all the way anyway!
Best thing we ate?
One of the cool things about traveling to different areas is checking out local farmer’s markets and discovering what is grown in different regions. At the Rogue Valley Growers Market we hit the jackpot with fresh morel mushrooms! Gary used to forage for these as a kid, so it was a treat to find them in a farmers market in Oregon. We snatched up a bag before they were all gone and fried them up that night in the Airstream.
What we learned?
Go with your gut. When we both felt that our stop wasn’t quite right, we discussed and made the decision to move on quickly. We followed our instincts and had a relaxing and enjoyable week in a fun town and still got to see our main attraction, Crater Lake, without having to stay overnight in an RV Park in the freezing cold.
Next Stop: Oregon Small and Smaller Towns