Two Lakes & A Lava Bed

Yeah, so... I'm about two weeks behind in my writing.  For those of you trying to keep track, I spent October 4 - 7 meandering south from Bend towards Sacramento, California.

My first big stop along the way was Crater Lake in southern Oregon.  The lake rests inside the hole left behind by an old volcano.  It's almost 2,000 feet deep and is the deepest lake in the U.S.  (And thinking about that creeps me the F out!)  It's also a very high lake, with an average surface elevation of 6,173 feet above sea level.

Crater Lake, with Mount Scott in the background.

It was pretty chilly there; there was snow on the ground in some of the higher places along the road that circles the lake.  And it even started to snow a bit while I was there, tiny little flakes.

The Phantom Ship

Just 100 miles south, in northern California, is an obscure little national park, the Lava Beds National Monument.  It's in the middle of the high desert but is even more barren.  Basically, it is miles of volcanic rock spewed all over the place from some ancient volcano.  The lava has long since cooled (too bad, I'd like to see molten lava!) but it left behind some really cool formations, including several caves that people can explore.

At Lava Beds, this is all you can see for miles in any direction.

Except for a few places where the lava piled up.

In part due to time restrictions, I only went into one cave.  But I'll be honest, I would have gone into more, except being all alone in a cave, even one that had guidelights on the floor and was only 700 feet long from the entrance to the end, scared me a little and I didn't want to go in more.  Not by myself, at any rate.  :(  Walking back out was especially creepy, when I had to turn my back to ... whatever was back in the cave waiting to get me.

See how scary that is?!?!

The cave's roof was formed by "melting" lava, which cooled and hardened as if it was dripping ice cream.

I spent that night in Reno, Nevada.  My destination was actually Lake Tahoe, but it was so much cheaper to stay in Reno, I thought why not.  And I discovered that Reno is a magic city!  The night I arrived, I found a way to turn $20 into $32.  And the next morning, I found a way to make $30 disappear!  If you would like to know the secret to making money magically appear and disappear, write to me and share a secret of your own, and I will tell you the secret!

Lake Tahoe looked like it would be really nice in season.  It looked really nice in early October, too, but the snow on the ground probably puts a damper on a lot of the lake-and-beach-oriented fun.  It also looks like a big ski area, too, so I'm sure it's fun in winter as well.

Check out Lake Tahoe's beautiful clear water.

What I didn't get was why there were so many people driving through the area on a random Saturday in October.  Nothing was going on.  No boating/beaching (is that a word?), no skiiing.  No festivals (that I could tell).  Just tons of cars passing through the area.  It might be because there aren't many east-west roads through that part of the country.  /shrug.  I drove that night to Sacramento.  (Post coming soon!)