monday

Camping at Crater Lake this past weekend was so much fun! Let me recap it for you.

• We picked John and Julia up around 9 Saturday morning, and 10 minutes later we were on the road.
• We stopped for gas somewhere south of Woodburn.
• We stopped for pizza in Sisters. There were lots of antique malls there, but overall it seemed like a really outdoorsy town. I was doing yoga on the sidewalk to ease my sciatica, and there was a man staring at me with the most bizarre look on his face. I was facing away from him, just going through sun salutations, and the next time I looked back at him he was doing his own version of yoga. He had his leg on the table and was stretching! I loved it. Wish I'd taken his photo for yogaseed (not without asking first, of course!).
• We stopped in Bend for coffee. Cooler than Sisters, but not as cool as I'd hoped it would be. We went to their Saturday market. That was a bust. Julia and I also discovered a cool little store that sold Frye boots and feather earrings, and a bunch of other neat stuff.
  
• Finally, we were officially on our way to Crater Lake, with no more stops to make. It took longer than I'd thought it would. It was cold. Really cold. Once we got into the National Park, it was really cool. It was cloudy and really foggy! The first area we drove through was called Pumice Desert. And after that it got extra foggy. We could see that there were steep drop-offs, sometimes on either side of us, and there were no guard rails. It was snowing. (I said it was cold!). We got to a sign that said something along the lines of falling would cause injury or death, and I said, "falling from where?" It was so foggy that we could not even see the lake to our left. We pulled over to catch a peek, and you had to get right up on the edge to see it, but we were definitely able to see the water. It was so very blue!
• On to the campsite. We got the last of 200 tent sites. Yes, there were 199 other groups of maniacs willing to sleep in tents in 30 degree weather too! We found our site- F4- and set up. Well, the boys set up. I sat in the car. We started drinking (had to warm up!) and took a walk. There were some beautiful sites to see. It was like nothing I've ever seen before. I climbed a tree (got stuck in it too) and then we headed back to the camp site.
  
• We found sticks in the woods to cook our veggie dogs! I'm still learning how to be an outdoor girl, and my veggie dog fell off my stick and landed in the fire. It was not salvageable. Keith ended up cooking one for me, and I ate another one cold because I didn't want to chance losing another one. I forgot to mention that before dinner, Keith and I went to a program put on by a park ranger and we sang camp fire songs and learned a little bit about the park. When we got there, the ranger said, "I see you've got hot chocolate in those bottles to keep you warm?" Who puts hot chocolate in a bottle? We said yes anyway because we assumed maybe we weren't supposed to have beer at the sing-along.
  
• We went to bed pretty early. It was cold. Then it got colder. And colder. We barely slept, and we shivered all night. At one point, we decided to see if we could both squeeze into the same sleeping bag. We aren't very big people, but it wasn't really a success. We did the best we could! When we woke up, we looked up and the sky was the brightest blue and birdies were chirping. (Our tent didn't have a rain fly, so thank goodness it didn't rain!).
  
• The J's and I walked to the store to get coffee and Keith slept a little more. Once we got back to the site we packed up and headed up to the lake (camp grounds were about 7 miles away) and checked things out. It was much more clear than it had been the day before and it was beautiful. I (of course) was doing yoga and a woman commented on the pose I was doing and I told her that she should do it with me. She did! I told her about my yogaseedpdx page, gave her my card and asked if Julia could take our photo in reverse warrior to post on the site. She agreed. We spent 10 or 15 minutes doing yoga, and I heard someone say my name. I looked up at there was one of my students! So bizarre! He was with his family, so I did some yoga with him, and his little son as well. It was really awesome! Here we are, 5 or more hours south of Portland and I'm running into someone I know! Those pictures will be posted on my yoga blog soon.
• From here we headed to Ashland, Oregon. John went to college there and told us it was a pretty cool town. He was not kidding! I loved it! It was farther than we'd anticipated and it ended up taking us a couple of hours, but it was so worth it. We drove through a bunch of towns. Keno, Ft. Klamath, Klamath Falls. Nothing of note happening at any of those places! Ashland was so awesome, I could totally see myself living there! We had dinner at a brewery (Keith had a double i.p.a., so flipping delightful), and then we walked around the town. John showed us some neat spots, but unfortunately, we had to get back on the road. Ashland is really close to California, and we had to come all the way back to Portland. It was a straight shot up the 5 but it was about 5 hours. We were so exhausted when we finally got back. All in all, we had a most fantastic time and I am so glad we decided to brave the cold and just do it!
  

Today I'm going to go to the farmer's market in Pioneer Square and pick up some local organic produce! Right now, I am loving being an Oregonian! Yay!

xoxo-
T