The Rustands: Crater Lake National Park

9-6

Crater Lake National Park is, in my opinion, one of the more unique national parks we have ever been to. The area surrounding the lake is very dry/volcanic/Mars-like in the vegetation and overall look yet you can still see forest and mountains off in the distance. It doesn't seem as though there is much to the national park except for the lake itself. Since we weren't planning to do any hiking, we didn't really even look for any trails so I can't speak for what or how much hiking is offered in the park. There is a road that goes around the whole perimeter of the lake (maybe 30+miles around?), but we only drove a handful of miles to one of two visitor's centers. One of the first signs we saw when driving up to the lake strongly cautioned visitors that "falling may cause injury or death". Huh. So maybe Crater Lake isn't the most kid-friendly (or user-friendly!) national park we have ever been to... I have to admit, I was nervous going to Crater Lake with the kids for that very reason based on some things I read prior to making the trip. The sign confirmed my anxiety. That and the fact that Charlie and Alanna kept leaning over the short rock wall making me extra nervous. It wasn't as if they were ever in iminent danger, but my mommy brain was still fairly concerned. Wah-wah.

Wow. I should probably start this over.

Crater Lake was one of the very last things on our master 'Oregon to-do' list. (The only place we have left to explore is more of the Bend/Sisters area on the other side of the Cascades.)We have heard nothing but great things about how blue the water is so we were excited to finally make the trek over to see it with our own eyes. When we saw the lake, Matt and I confirmed that yes, the water is blue. We spent under three hours at the lake/visitor's center and in that time the shade of blue changed depending on the clouds/sun. The sky had thin wispy clouds when we arrived but it cleared up so we saw the lake in full sun before leaving for the day. With the sunshine on the water, it truly did look so, so blue!! I feel like Crayola could mimic the shade of blue and create a crayon called Crater Lake without copying any of the existing colors in the Crayola world. I'm so glad we were able to see it in both weather conditions.

One of the strangest things about the lake is that there is no real frame of reference for how big the lake is. It looks like a giant lake. What's the big deal? It's big, but is it bigger than Flathead Lake? Certainly not bigger than the great lakes... so what's. the. big. deal? Oh - that whole used-to-be-a-volcano thing must play a part in why this particular lake is now a national park. ;) Charlie and Alanna kept talking about volcanoes that day and for the next several days after. (Side note: Charlie got some stickers from Auntie Katie in the mail and there were actually two stickers that had volcanoes on them. One said "volcano" and the other said "Hawaii volcano". Charlie called the Hawaii volcano, "How-all" volcano, pronouncing Hawaii like the word howl. So cute! I never did correct him...) There are tour boat rides offered and we saw a few different boats out on the water, but they looked teeny tiny. Other than the boats, it was hard to grab onto the scale of the lake.

After having a picnic by the lake, we snapped some pictures and checked out the small visitor's center. We walked a bit and took some more photos before deciding that we had accomplished the goal of seeing Crater Lake. We stopped at Diamond Lake on the way home to throw some rocks and take a short stretch break. Diamond Lake was so pretty and reminded Matt and me of Minnesota; the look of the water, the boats, the smell of exhaust, the smell of the water, etc. I guess the mountains around the lake made it feel Oregonish, but the rest of it definitely had that Minnesota feel. It was lovely! I think a day trip was just enough time to do what we wanted to do. I'm glad we didn't carve out a whole weekend camping trip to spend at the national park because, if I'm honest, I'm not sure what we would have done all weekend! So mission accomplished. Crater Lake National Park - check!!

Why, oh why, do kids have to LEAN over the wall so much?!? It's not like it was an immediate drop right here, but the general slope of the landscape is leading down to the water so regardless of where we were, it would definitely not be a good thing to fall over the wall.