Crater Lake-June 4th

We left Kennedy School (our hotel) and drove down I-5 to Eugene.  Mom visited her old alma mater, The University of Oregon.  It was a grey day and slightly cool.

We walked around campus looking at all the new buildings.  I found it kind of boring.  We did go to Starbucks where I got four small bags of Hippeas (vegan & gluten free cheesy puffs), so that was not so bad.  After this, we drove across the Cascades to the eastern side of the mountains.  There was so much snow this year that only the southern entrance to the park was open.

 When we finally made it up to Crater Lake (elevation 7,000 ft) there was a lot of snow.  Our room wasn't ready at Crater Lake Lodge, so we waited in great room with the fire place and views of the lake.

 When we finally got our room, we brought up our stuff and went out exploring.  The light was really severe, so we wore hats and sun glasses.

 Mom's blue hair blue lake picture.

 There's Crater Lake Lodge.

 I had to keep a travel journal for my 4th grade teacher, Mr. Harlor.  I did miss a week of school for this trip.

 The lake was an awesome sight, but since there was still so much snow there wasn't much to do....

 Next stop, The Oregon Caves!

The Oregon Caves & the Chateau-June 5-6th

On Monday morning we drove the 3-1/2 hours from Crater Lake to the Oregon Caves.  The Oregon Caves are located in the very SW corner of Oregon, very close to the California State border in the Siskyou Mountain range.  The Chateau is the historic hotel built next to the Oregon Caves in 1934.  We planned to stay here the next two nights.  Night one, we stayed on the 3rd floor in a small suite in the back of the hotel.  It was ok.  My parents had to capture and release several room spiders onto the roof.  I am not a fan of sharing space with spiders.  Night 2-we moved to the rooms that you can see the windows of in this picture (left hand side, second floor-two larger windows with a little one in the middle.)

 

The Chateau had more of a rustic charm than the elegant charm of Crater Lake Lodge.

Next to the Chateau was the Chalet where the forest rangers and the cave interpretation center were located.  

 The Cave entrance is above the waterfall-we could see and hear this waterfall from our rooms.

There deer at the Oregon Caves were not afraid of us.  There is one at the top of the stairs.

 We did a lot of hiking here.  We climbed up to this view.

 The cave tour was really cool.  The Ranger told us a lot about caves in general.  The caves were made out of marble, which is baked limestone.  I saw a small brown bat too.  Here are some formations in the cave.

 There were a lot of snails and millipedes at the caves.

 My room in the Chateau.

 Mom, Dad and I went on a long hike to see a big tree, which is an old Douglas Fir.  We estimated 30 ft for the tree circumference.  It was a good hike, fortunately we did not run into any bears.

Southern Oregon Coast & the Sylvia Beach Hotel-June 7

 Today is my 10th Birthday.  My parents and I packed up at the Chateau and headed for the Oregon Coast.  We took Hwy 199 which dipped into California before we headed north again.  Once on the road we realized than we had more ground to cover than we thought, so it was a big car day.  We did stop at Port Orford where they had Battle Rock.  Dad and I decided to climb it while Mom got and espresso next to the park.

  

 That's me next to the tree on the rock.  We found three graves up here. The battle was between white settlers and the native Americans back in 1850.

 It was a short steep climb to get up here.

 North of Port Orford is the Cape Blanco Lighthouse.  It was wild and windy up here.  From the park volunteers, we learned a lot about the lives of the people that maintained these lighthouses back in the late 1800's.  we learned that each lighthouse has it's own signals and that striped light houses are only on the east coast.

 We did get inside Cape Blanco and got to go up to the light.

 The lense was made in Paris and was extremely complicated.  On our way out of the state park, we stopped at this historic Hughes farm house a couple miles down the road.  It was the light house keepers nearest neighbors.

This amazing house has ground squirrels, they were really cute.

After this, it was back in the car for a couple hours.  We needed to get to Newport by 7 o'clock.  That's when the Sylvia Beach Hotel served dinner.

 We made it with 6 minutes to spare.  The Sylvia Beach Hotel is a literary themed hotel, with each room being devoted to a different author throughout the ages.  We had the Ken Kesey Room.  He wrote:  The One Who Flew Over the Coocoo's Nest.  Dinners are served at one time and guest have to sit together at several big tables.  I was hungry and the food wasn't coming fast enough.

 Mom was happy to have a beer after all the driving.

 After dinner, we explored the rooms that were not rented out that night. I liked the Dr. Suess Room.

The toilet had a fake fish tank as it's back! 

The J.K. Rowling Room was open and the theme was Gryffindor-I like my room better which has the same theme.

Of course, the Sylvia has a library on the third floor where people can sit and read or just look at the beach.  Dad andI were going to play a game up here, but I moved a small table with a marble top.  The marble top came crashing on my foot.  It really hurt. but overall, I was ok.  

 

 

 My parents promised that we would do something more fun tomorrow.

The Oregon Coast Aquarium-June 8th

 Since I spent most of my 10th birthday in the car, my parents and I tried to do more fun things today.  After having breakfast at the Sylvia Beach Hotel with a spectacular view of Nye Beach, we packed up the car in the rain and headed toward the Oregon Coast Aquarium.  We got there 12 minutes before it opened and stood under the gift shop porch while  being eaten by mosquitoes.

 The aquarium had really interesting exhibits and I really enjoyed looking at the animals.

 This is a green moray eel, he was pretty big.

 They had some fish tanks that you could climb into.

 They also had a petting zoo with starfish and anemones.  Dad and I like to pet creatures.

Me with a school of silvery fish.  After the aquarium we drove north of Newport to the Yaquina Head Lighthouse, the tallest lighthouse on the Oregon Coast.  They had a really awesome interpretive center.  Unfortunately, the next lighthouse tour was in an hour and a half, and we didn't have that much time to wait.  We did get to drive to the lighthouse and walk around. 

 Dad and I loved looking at all the nesting birds on the rocks.  The lighthouse was impressive.  We actually saw this lighthouse in action the night before from the Sylvia Beach Hotel.  It's special signal is 14 seconds off, 2 seconds on, 2 seconds off, 2 seconds on.

 A lot of different birds nested out here.  I have to write an animal report when I go back to school.  This might be a good choice.

Our next stop was Cannon Beach.  It is a very upscale, planned  seaside town.  All the buildings have cedar shakes on the sides.  This is Dad and I with the Tillamook Lighthouse on a rock in the distance.

Haystack Rock is also on this beach.  After this we drove to Long Beach Washington.  Unfortunately, we were short on time and missed a lot of the Lewis and Clark stuff.