This morning we prepared a breakfast in our Guest House. If you’ve been following us for awhile, you know we like to find other lodging accommodations then just staying in hotels all the time. We stayed in Eugene, Oregon for two nights in a couple’s guest house. It is a small two bedroom, two bathroom house that’s attached to their house. It was built for the owner’s mother, who lives in San Francisco and refuses to move to Oregon, so they started renting it out on AirBnB.com. Since it was built for his mother, it was done up right, beautiful wood trim/floor, tile, and decor.
We left around 9am and headed out to Crater Lake. It was about a 3 hour drive south east from where are staying in Eugene. The drive had some great views of the trees and the mountains.
Crater Lake National Park is a United States National Park located in southern Oregon and was established in 1902. The park is the fifth oldest national park in the United States and the only one in the state of Oregon. The park consists of Crater Lake, a remnant of a destroyed volcano, Mount Mazama, and the surrounding hills and forests.
The lake is 1,943 feet deep at its deepest point, which makes it the deepest lake in the United States, the second deepest in North America and the ninth deepest in the world. And it has the bluest natural water we’ve ever seen in a body of water. The lake has no rivers running into it, so it’s filled with rain water and melted snow. Here are some pictures:
Even though it’s mid-June, they had gotten snow the day before and a majority of the road was closed. There was still snow on the ground even though it was 55 degrees. And of course, I was wearing shorts! I’m having a hard time dressing appropriately in this weather!
After leaving Crater Lake, we consulted our trusty “Off the Beaten Path Oregon” book and found a waterfall that was close to our path home. Toketee Falls is a waterfall that drops 120 feet. It was a short hike (less than a half mile) from the parking lot on a very well marked path.
The last stop of the day was a natural springs (Umpqua Hot Springs). Again, it was a short hike from the car up a pretty steep path. There were several pools of water with them naturally maintaining 110 degrees. We didn’t bring our swim gear, otherwise we would have gotten in!
We headed back towards Eugene and had to stop at a Bike store owner’s house who rented us a bike rack for our biking adventure tomorrow. After a quick stop at the grocery store, we headed home for to make a late dinner. We made a grain free lasagna with zucchini as the noodles. It was interesting trying to cook in our guest home because we had very limited dishes. We even had to pick up a spatula at the store so we could brown our meat.
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