Here There and Everywhere

Mt. Shasta and Crater Lake

We have a process, a road trip planning process. I come up with an idea, a route. I sketch it out and run it by AdventureMan. He gives me input like “Oh good, I’ve always wanted to see Crater Lake, can we fit that in?” and we build it into the trip.

The truth is, I love to plan trips. I spend hours looking for fun, unique, interesting little hotels to stay in, or if there is some destination, at least see if we can find a hotel with something interesting nearby, or the least uninteresting hotel in town.

We have discovered we do better as a couple if we don’t spend too much time on the road, driving, something it really took me a long time to figure out.

You know how you grow up in a culture, and it never occurs to you that there is another way of doing things? Like I grew up thinking that men always put the gas in cars, so it was a great shock to my husband when we got married and we would get close to running out of gas because it never occurred to me that I was supposed to fill the tank (I learned that one fairly quickly!) It has taken many years for me to figure out that not every family gets up before the crack of dawn to start a road trip, and drives hell-bent-for-leather for many hours to get somewhere, or to get as close as you can to somewhere. My poor husband! I thought a twelve hour day on the road was normal. His family never took road trips! We had some mutual adjusting and negotiating to go through. 🙂

So we added Crater Lake to the trip. I didn’t much care; I had been there years ago, well, close to fifty years ago, LOL, but OK, let’s go. I had no idea how cool this day was going to be.

First, I am going to bore you with several photos of Mt. Shasta. Starting from McCloud, we almost totally circled Mt. Shasta, stopping in Weed, California, to buy a T-shirt for our son, which he assures us he will never wear, that says in big letters “I LOVE WEED” and under it in small letters, “California.” I just thought as a prosecutor, he might find it humorously ironic. Sigh.

And then, we hit the snow. I keep hoping the roads are open all the way up to the Crater, and the snow keeps creeping higher, and into the road 😦

But we make it, and I am wearing my Florida sandals. I love the cold, and it doesn’t bother me one bit, but people can be rude, all dressed in their snow suits and boots, looking at my bare feet.

We stop at the lodge to buy post cards; it really is open, there is a temporary tunnel that you can take to get inside. Below is our rental car; you can see how high the snow level is.

As concerned as I was about being able to reach the lake, I am so glad we did this. It was a thrill to see Mt. Shasta from all different angles, and to see the huge crowds of people from everywhere visiting Crater Lake, even this early in the season. When I visited last time, about the same time of year, so many years ago . . . we were the only ones there!

June 3, 2018 - Posted by intlxpatr | Adventure, Beauty, Family Issues, Road Trips, Travel | Crater Lake