"The Way West"...Day 42...Tuesday, July 24, 2012

The drive from Bend down to Crater Lake National Park is only 105 miles, so I can take it easy this morning. I bring in the coffee maker and brew a pot in my room. I have time for a nice long shower. And I spend an hour or so posting to the blog and cleaning up my inbox.
Around 11:00, I check out of the Days Inn and head across the street to Safeway to stock up on supplies...ice for the coolers, chicken, ground beef, milk, etc. From there, I drive to a small gift shop to pick up a Bend sticker for the camper. From there, it's only a short drive to "Primal Cuts", the local gourmet meat shop. The butcher has some 30-day dry-aged rib eyes that look great...I get a nice thick one. And...the butcher shop is right next to Spork, so I pick up two big carnitas tacos for the road.
Not far outside of Bend, I come upon the Newberry Crater National Volcanic Monument. Unfortunately, I can't actually see the crater. To do that, you have to drive up this steep mountain road...no campers allowed. So, I sit in the shade and eat my tacos from Spork. After lunch, I walk around in the old lava beds and get a few photos.
The rest of the drive is beautiful...lots of trees, winding roadway, nice views. By the time I get to my campground at Crater Lake, it's after 6:00PM. I have already reserved my campsite online. When Shannon and I visited here in 2008, everything (Lodge, motel, campground) was booked, and we had to drive almost thirty miles out of the Park to find a campground.
I'm lucky enough to get a very nice pull-through site in a great location. So, I set up camp before relaxing with a Maker's Mark on the rocks. I fry up some ground beef, heat up a jar of Mario Batali Marinara sauce and boil some pasta for dinner...very good with a nice bottle of Chianti.
After dinner, I'm sitting back and enjoying my wine when a couple from California (Tom and April) stop by to admire my camper. We end up talking for almost three hours...I break out another bottle of wine and, later, we get into the CatDaddy. They've driven to Alaska, so we talk about that drive and all of the little towns along the way. They drove the "Top of the World Highway", and we talk about how scary that ride is with no guardrails. Tom and April are both licensed firearms safety instructors, so we talk about my Glock 26 and the merits of the Glock line versus the Sig Sauer line.
Around 11:00, Tom and April drift off and, soon, I'm drifting off to sleep.