Happy Birthday, Ashton!  Today, Jordan and I spent the day traveling down Oregon’s Cascades…

Best Laid Plans

For Day 16 (June 24, 2010) the plan was this:

Today, we will travel down the Cascade range in central Oregon from Mount Hood to Crater Lake National Park, where we will do some hiking before heading to our campsite at Diamond Lake.

What Actually Transpired

Happy Birthday, Ashton!

Today, we set out from our quiet campsite at Mount Hood and headed south, along the Cascades, seeing several volcanoes along the way, including Mount Jefferson, Three-fingered Jack, and the Three Sisters. In Bend, we decided that it was a sign that we kept passing “Abby’s Legendary Pizza” (7 times on the trip), and that it must be calling us. So, since we did not want to let Abby’s calling go in vain, we stopped there for lunch and found the pizza to truly be legendary.

In the afternoon, we arrived at Crater Lake, which was absolutely stunning, and we hiked down to the surface of the lake. Along the way down and up, I was just about carried away by mosquitoes because I didn’t have my DEET on. Jordan did a bit better, though he was eaten on the way back because his DEET had partially washed off when he jumped into the ice-cold waters of the lake … twice.

When we went to our campsite at Diamond Lake, the folks running the camp had accidentally assigned it to someone else. So, they offered us a refund – which we took – and we drove a couple more hours down the road (to get a jump on the longer driving day the next day). So, we stayed at Glenyan of Ashland in Ashland, OR, which was pretty nice, except that I accidentally locked the keys in the trunk before going to bed. I knew it right away, but there was nothing to do about it at 1 a.m.

C’est la vie.

Odometer Start: 39087
Odometer End: 39453
Total Miles: 366 miles

Funny/Deep/Odd/Profound Observations

Protip: When you only have one key, make sure it changes pants when you do.

Pictures

Here’s a link to the day’s photo album and its slide show.