A Night and a Day Away - Crater Lake

From the top of Garfield Peak in Crater Lake National Park. 

It's been scorching hot in the Rogue Valley, and PK and I have been working too hard too much on our big garden/little farm. Let's go up by Crater Lake and camp for a night then go for a hike in the Park? I suggested. He was on it, and the next day we were in our Four Wheel camper headed for our favorite camp spot just 90 minutes from home and a half hour from Crater Lake National Park. 

This says it all. Sweet respite and a brew beside the river.

We arrived at the best little campground ever (it shall remain unnamed) around 4 p.m, and scored the last remaining river site—only 10 sites in the campground. That would be the Rogue River a few miles from where it emerges from the earth in a magical place called Boundary Springs just outside Crater Lake National Park. Here the river is a sprinting creek, leaping through the flower-filled meadows and the old growth forest and making freshet music that we were longing to hear. No cell phone service here, and no wireless, of course. It was just us, the river, the trees, the star-filled night, and the wonderful forest fragrance.

Old growth Douglas Fir trees around the picnic table at campsite number six. 

The next morning we drove to Crater Lake, marveled once again at its utter blueness, and got a good workout on a couple of hikes. 

Is there a paint color called Crater Lake Blue? It is so intense and beautiful.

Still a bit of snow on the trail to Garfield Peak. It felt great to be tourists for a day.

We were home in time to throw together a quick feast from the garden, which didn't know we were trying to escape its demands and pumped out a bunch of ripe melons and tomatoes during our brief but much-needed break.