Current Location: Roseburg, OR

On Sunday, I left Crescent City and drove towards the Oregon border via US 199. It was only about 35 miles to the border, but I did get to pass the great California fruit shakedown near the border. Apparently you can carry all sorts of things into the state, drugs, alcohol, weapons, illegals, but not fruit, they don't want to contaminate their farms with out of state fruit. There was a backup of about 20 cars and trucks, even though it was a relatively lightly driven backwater highway.

I pretty much drove all day via US 199 until I reached I-5, which I took south until I reached Medford, OR where I took Oregon 62 north to Crater Lake National Park. I reached the park at about 5:30 PM, which gave me plenty of time to drive around and admire the many wonderful views before dark. Crater Lake is a lake about 6 miles in diameter, the deepest lake in the United States and the 7th deepest in the world. The lake fills the crater of a volcano that erupted in the 1400s, and has a magnificent deep dark blue color. Amazingly, the lake has set clarity records, sometimes you can see down depths of 120 feet, despite the fact that the water in the lake is pretty much the same water year after year. Because of the very high crater banks, ranging in elevation from 700 to 1000 feet, the lake does not feed any rivers, and so water only escapes via evaporation, which takes place at about the same rate melting snow drips into the lake.



These lake viewpoints are all about 1,000 feet elevation above the lake's surface

I drove all around the lake one and a half times. One circle around the lake was about 46 miles. Near the end of my first revolution, the sun started to set, so I took my time taking photos while the sun set on my way out of the park, exiting to the north side. Crater Lake was the 9th National Park in 9 days.



You can see the rest of the photos here. I was running low on gas and I left the park via Oregon 138 heading north, figuring I would find gas stations along the way back out to the interstate, as there were plenty on the road I took into the park. It got pretty hairy there though because the low fuel light came on pretty quickly as I left the borders of the park. I drove and drove and drove and didn't find any gas stations. Luckily most of the drive was downhill, dropping from 8,000 feet to 1,000 feet over the course of the first 50 miles, so I was able to put my car in neutral and coast between 50 and 60 mph most of the way, only slowing down for sharp curves. Because I was coasting at such a fast speed (though not exceeding the speed limit), I unfortunately nailed a raccoon. All I saw of it was the glow of its eyes as it realized death was imminent. It was near the middle of the road, and I swerved so it would pass directly under my car instead of my left wheel but, in its panic to survive it darted to my right and ended up under my right rear wheel. Crunch. Thankfully I hit it at such a fast speed it certainly died instantly rather than suffering. At about the 50 mile mark with the light on, I did start to see some settlements, some homes, maybe a campground here and there. Unfortunately, I did pass a few gas stations, but it being about 9 PM on sunday night, all the stations I passed were closed, so I had to keep going. I kept checking my phone to see if I was back in service range yet (nope!), so I would be able to make a phone call to AAA if necessary. I was also keeping careful track of the mile markers, not that would have helped me without phone service, but luckily they were counting down towards the interstate, so I knew the maximum distance I would have to go to get gas. I honestly was sort of hoping I would run out of gas, in that perverted part of the back of my brain, just so I'd have a better story, but that was not the case, as I did eventually find an open gas station (though I did have to go all the way to the interstate to find one). My car went an amazing 78 miles with the light on, and still had about a half gallon of fuel when I pulled into the station. Like New Jersey, Oregon does not allow you to pump your own gas, which I find intensely annoying. I hate full serve gas. I was in the town of Roseburg and since it was past 10 PM, I found a cheap motel and settled in for the night.

Today (sunday) was the 7th of August, the anniversary of my grandfather's birthday. (He left us two and a half years prior). I later found out in one of those weird coincidences in life that my grandmother found a quarter on his headstone. The quarter happened to be one of the very new Oregon quarters, which features Crater Lake on the tails side. Just a neat little coincidence I suppose; we're not really sure who placed the quarter there. I don't really have any strong opinions on the afterlife, I'm not sure what I believe, I usually don't give it much thought because I am concentrated on living this life more fully, but it is kind of neat to think that if there is an afterlife, my grandparents would be looking down on me, vigilant, in my corner, urging me on in my adventure from the big cheering section. Gramps would definitely relish hearing the adventures I'm experiencing, the sights I am seeing, and egg me on with little jokes about my car, which he dubbed The Silver Ghost. So even though I don't quite believe in an afterlife and heaven and all that, I certainly hope there is one, just so he can check in on me once in a while.