"Oh, Wow"...Giggle...Silence (Repeat)

Our God is an awesome God
He reigns from heaven above
With wisdom, power, and love
Our God is an awesome God

There is a road from the eye to the heart that does not go through the intellect.
-Gilbert Keith Chesterton

We're in a motel in Eugene, Oregon. I have just eaten four pieces of the WORST pizza EVER. It was horrible! Had Aunt Rocky not mixed a drink for me, I probably wouldn't have eaten it. The salad was good, though...

The combination of altitude, another day of driving 250-300 miles, and a nice toddy have made me a little less lucid than usual, but if I don't type this tonight, I'll never remember it tomorrow.

Today, we woke up before the sun and hit the road. We made a couple of stops before crater lake. At the side of the Rogue River, we found a few more rocks for Tacoman's science class and I shot a few pictures of some crazy looking ducks and a blue heron. We also saw the little mounds of salmon eggs, and enjoyed a bit of peace, and decided to move on.


Rogue Gorge was our next stop, where we saw a pretty little waterfall and lava tubes. Pretty interesting, but we were focused on our goal of a day at Crater Lake. The funny thing was that I realized, at this stop (when my teeth were chattering) that the great Tevo shoes I had bought for the trip had given me nasty blisters. Of course the blister band-aids (which are awesome, just by the way) were nowhere to be found. So I put my socks on with my flip-flops. I realized why Japanese women walk so strangely, trying to walk like that up and down a steep flight of log steps. (I did regain circulation in my toes, but it took a while).

Crater Lake, as promised, was absolutely beautiful. The water was the most amazing color blue/green/aqua. We had a great breakfast at the lodge...probably the best meal of the trip. We had wondered about staying the night up at the lake, so that I could get some sunrise pictures, but there were no clouds in the sky (for contrast), and although I enjoyed taking some pictures of the lake, there was no way to get any angles that were "different" from what every other person who visited the lake was able to capture. For me, the best part of photography is finding a view that is unusual in some way, and that's hard to do when you're at an elevation of 2000+ feet, with "vista points" spaced evenly throughout the National Park, and little opportunity to get off the beaten path.

I was especially hesitant to try to get a different angle when I saw the signs that said, "Caution! Falling may cause injury or death. Do not stand on cliff's edge." Ya know, up till that point, I was planning on hanging over the edge...but then I saw the sign, and had to think twice...thank goodness for the sign.

One of the neatest sights at the park was the Golden-Mantled Ground Squirrels. I told KoKo Loco (D's self-proclaimed nickname for the purposes of this blog) tonight on the phone that I thought of her when I saw them, and knew how much of a kick she'd get out of seeing them...so this one's for you, sweetie :)

We did enjoy several of the vista stops along the lake, but once I realized it was not going to be a place where I was able to break any new ground creatively, and once we had enjoyed the beauty of this special place for a while, we decided to head back down the mountain and stop at several of the wonderful waterfalls along the way.
The picture at the right was my favorite stop. We had (according to the Reader's Digest Scenic Routes book) an "EASY 0.5 mile hike" to see this beautiful waterfall. I'd hate to see the moderate and/or hard hike. Actually, going down was easy. Going back up was hateful! I had to stop twice and get a breath. Granted, the air is a lot more thin that I'm used to, considering we live at (and sometimes below) sea level. But the view was worth it. The "Awesome God" song, of which I put the refrain at the beginning of this post, kept playing in my head. Whether you call him God, or Allah, or your Spirit Guide, or your Higher Power, the view of this amazing waterfall reminded me that someone greater than any human was in charge...nothing so beautiful could have ever been envisioned by mankind.

We drove a little farther than Mom and Aunt Rocky had originally planned, trying to get closer to the coast. Tomorrow we hope to see sea lion caves and maybe even puffins.

"Oh, Wow"...Giggle...Silence (Repeat) is the sound effect you would have heard all day today, had I been taping us. Oregon is a very beautiful, dry, state with awe-inspiring mountains, bordered by streams, waterfalls and lakes, with beautiful valleys full of vineyards and horse farms. We have one more day here, and will probably reach Washington tomorrow or the next day. Every day there's a new surprise around the next corner, and I can't WAIT to see it.