Crater Lake and The Rouge River

The morning we left to drive to Crater Lake from Grants Pass the R V Park looked like it was in a cloud.

The road looked just the same.  The whole area was in a cloud.  Really pretty but a little strange to drive in.

Yes folks...there is still snow in them there hills!

Crater Lake was beautiful.  The air was cold  around 41 degrees.

The Lake is at an elevation of 4169 feet give or take but the peaks around it are as high as 8600 feet.  The lake look like a bowl of blue jello.

To see the lake you had to walk up a snowy embankment.  So as I took these pictures Steve was hanging onto my coat tail so I would not slide into the lake.  We met some students from Holland who were on a three week trip through the area. They were interesting to talk with and I took their picture for them all stand at the edge of Crater Lake.



The Rouge River rambles through southern Oregon and is usually a wide meandering rafting river but....
coming down from the Crater Lake area the river sources through a gorge about 500 feet long and is quite a site.

The drive was like being in a tree tunnel;)

Northern California and Southern Oregon

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The drive from northern California to Oregon was beautiful.  

The first site of Lake Shasta

Mount Shasta

It only gets better

These rock formations are called Craigs

The Rouge River in southern Oregon

Lake Tahoe

Lake Tahoe sits on the California Nevada border.  We drove from California to Truckee California just north of the lake.  The drive to Truckee was very nerve jarring because the road :) was narrow and very twisty.  Pulling the TT was challenging to say the least.  So we left the trailer in Truckee the next day and drove the lake solo.  These pictures represent some of the beautiful scenery around the lake.

 Emerald Bay

Snow can still be seen on the mountain tops.

Sequoia and Kings Canyon NP

Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks are found north and south of each other in south central California.  Their claim to fame are sequoia trees.  I have included some pictures for you to see.  Sequoia and Kings Canyon have many more sequoia trees than Yosemite but Yosemite's trees are larger which you will see in those pictures later.

Death Valley NP

Death Valley is a landscape that you can only call unusual to say the least.  Barren, sand, salt and rock.  Did see a turtle and a coyote.  So there is some life there.

The white is not snow or sand but salt!

Salt pools at Badwater Basin.

The lowest point in the US.  232 feet below sea level.  The area looks like a large snow lake but this  is salt from the old sea bed of eons ago.

Just so you will know.....It does rain in Death Valley...about twice a year.  We were 'lucky' enough to see one of those rains....followed by a dust storm that coated your car making mud!

I don't know why the astronauts went to Germany to train for the lunar landing when the landscape in Death Valley looks like the surface of the moon.

This is a typical road in the Death Valley area  50 miles straight ahead!!

Hoover Dam and Memorial Bridge

The Hoover Dam is big and bold.  And even though it is one of Civil Engineering's greatest feats The bridge wins out. The folks there call it the 'detour bridge' because the original road to travel was over the top of Hoover Dam.  You can still drive it but now it takes you to parking lots to park and tour the dam.  We took the tour of the dam and power plant.  They took you right inside to see the inner workings, the inspection sites and you even looked out one of the air vent on the dam face.

Hoover Dam is taller than the Glen Canyon Dam we saw in 2012 but Glen Canyon is longer.  Both are amazing engineering accomplishments along the Colorado River..

THE bridge is another amazing structure.  Several years ago an engineer from one of the firms who designed and worked on the construction came and made a presentation at the ODOT meeting in Columbus.  But seeing it in person.was Whoa!!