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This morning while I cooked breakfast Pete found he could take it no more. He washed the car lol If it was up to me it would've been left it as was to return to the rental co but he just couldn't bear it being so filthy any longer.
We headed inland today, away from the coast aiming for Crater Lake National Park. It's been a warmer day than we've had lately, we topped out at about 26C. Finally, the shorts and thongs came back out today :-)
The inland roads mainly led us through cool fragrant forests beside crystal clear streams and through small communities often based around the local sawmill. Rivers and ponds were full of logs curing.
There were rural areas with cattle and grapes but a couple of properties also had sheep. We are still not seeing lamb anywhere on menus or in the supermarkets so they must be used solely for wool :-(
We had lunch by a river, there were still several salmon there dead after spawning late in the season. Thankfully they were submerged so we couldn't smell them :-)
After a long drive through a National Forest we came to Crater Lake National Park. We had heard it was beautiful but nothing prepared us for how truly gorgeous it is. Formed 7700 years ago as the result of a massive volcanic explosion the deep blue lake is just mirror like perfection.
We drove all round the rim stopping frequently to take photos. There's white, pink and orange pumice all over the place. Pete stopped to have a quick foot spruce up with some of it lol
The trees near the crater rim are all stunted and deformed from the constant pressure of winds. The rock formations from when they were pushed up by the eruption are incredible, like the building blocks of giant children just strewn about.
At one of the viewpoints a cheeky chipmunk came to check us out and beg for food. Pete sat and it came right up to him, I could see he was tempted to reach out those few inches and pat it but like me the stories of how they bite and have rabies stopped him. Just lol
At every turn we were treated to yet another spectacular view of this amazing lake.
We stayed til the sun spectacularly went down; the temps plummeting with the sun to a chilly 10C and then made our way out of the park to Klamath Falls for the night.
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