Day 13, July 31: Oregon Coast to Crater Lake

Day 13, July 31: Oregon Coast to Crater Lake

With a leisurely day on the agenda, I woke fairly early and fixed myself some breakfast on my camp stove. A little eggs and Canadian bacon gave me the boost I needed. I carried my coffee down to the beach to meditate and walk in the ocean. I was early enough to beat the crowd, and I almost had the beach to myself. There’s nothing quite like listening the sound of the waves hitting the beach in the morning and the gulls calling to each other while you bury your toes in the cool, moist sand.

The beach outside my campground.

Pretty soon, the beach started to fill with folks looking for something only an ocean can provide, and I headed to the car to start off to Crater Lake.

Oregon coast

It would have taken less time to get there if I hadn’t had to stop so many times to take a photo of the coastline or simply to stand and take in the beauty of it all. I set the GPS for Seafood Station, that little place Jesse and I ate last summer. It turned out I would hit it about 11:30 – just in time for lunch.

Best seafood on the Oregon Coast

I pulled in the parking lot (about three parking places outside an old filling station that had been renovated), and saw a closed sign in the window. My heart dropped, afraid it was out of business. I parked and went towards the door anyway, and it turned out they didn’t open until 11:30 and it was 11:25. They beckoned me in, and a couple in their 60s followed me closely.

The other couple, Leslie and Jack, and I visited the whole time we ate. He explained, in the first few minutes we were there, that they’d been married for years but were living separately right now. She stayed in the California town they had raised their kids in, and he bought a ranch in southern Oregon to raise hay. He was worried about the economy and wanted something firm, like land, to give him some security. His wife didn’t agree, but they both were doing what they needed to do.

By the end of lunch, we felt like old friends, and she hugged me when we stood to leave. I hugged her back and wished them the best, as they did me. What lovely people there are out there.

On the drive from the coast to Crater Lake

After lunch, I kicked it into higher gear and headed for Crater Lake. With no reservation for camping, I was a little anxious, but I’m learning to trust that things will be what they are and the value that comes from each experience is just exactly what I need and want. I called the park, and the ranger said there were eight spots open, but they couldn’t reserve any for the same day.  So I began to hurry as I was about an hour away by the best estimate. Then I hit road construction. And this was not just slow-you-down-a-little road construction; it was major-delay road construction. Two sets of waiting for a pilot car, and a long drive each time behind that car. And the first pilot car drove, I kid you not, five miles per hour for most of the stretch. In about 45 minutes time, I took about five minutes off the time to arrive according to the GPS.

I began to get very impatient and was cussing that first pilot car driver, when I realized it just doesn’t matter. It would be okay. So I settled in to enjoy my audio book and resigned myself to the time table being forced on me. Then I got to Crater Lake. What I had intended to be a quick drive through the park to the campground ended up having many stops to look at the beauty that this National Park has to offer. My god. It’s amazing. I don’t know how many times I’ve said that about what I’m seeing on this trip, but every single destination and leg of the journey has something unique and special and breathtaking about it. The blue of this lake that is set inside an old volcano defies description. And the mountains surrounding the park are just as awe-inspiring.

Crater Lake is ringed with volcanoes

The road itself runs around the rim of the crater, and the drop-offs are steep and have no guard rails, so there’s no driving fast even if you wanted to. One mis-turn or poor judgment and you’d be careening over the edge to who knows what landing spot.

The bluest water I've ever seen.

I pulled into the campground finally, after being behind a slow car the last five miles or so when we could have driven a little faster, and stood in line behind two other groups of people with business at the campground office. When I finally got to the window, I asked if she had any tent sites left, and what do you know, they had one left. Only one. Now if they had been full, there are plenty of National Forest campgrounds nearby, but as the universe would have it, I had one here, waiting for me.  And to make matters better, it was a “choose your own site” type of reservation, so even though all the campsites were booked, if the people with reservations hadn’t arrived yet, I had the pick of what was open. What a deal.

So now I’m sitting in front of my campfire, writing my blog here for the day, getting ready to plan my hike for tomorrow and then the drive to the next destination. I may try to make it to Lake Tahoe tomorrow, or I may just get a ways down the road to Yosemite, finding a campsite in the Sierra Nevadas or somewhere else along the road.

This kind of travel I like to think of as traveling with feminine energy – just letting it flow. Eating when I’m hungry, stopping when I feel the desire to check something out, sleeping when I’m tired – it’s all a matter of being a part of the flow instead of trying to manage it with linear, masculine energy. I first experienced this type of travel with Jesse out in New York two years ago when we took a four-day trip on his bike. We put everything in a backpack I wore on the back of the bike and we simply took off, open to the experiences that presented themselves. I’ve been hooked ever since. Yes, of course there are times when a little planning makes things easier, but the less planning the better as far as I’m concerned. And I’m hoping I get more and more comfortable with this freedom to roam wherever the journey takes me. When it comes right down to it, that’s really all we do any way, right?