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When I left you Saturday morning we were sleeping in at Corinne and Mike’s place.

The first order of business for Saturday was a tasty breakfast of homemade waffles with fresh berries.

After that we took a little tour of the small town of Trout Lake and headed back to their property for a tour of their tree farm. The farm borders the White Salmon river, which many people use to kayak down. Here’s a view of one of the rapids on their property.

After a bit of rest and dinner we headed to the rodeo at The Dalles, OR. This was our first rodeo and quite a bit of fun, although I think the animals won. We saw some decent horse riding, but not so good calf and steer roping and terrible bull riding. The highlight of the evening may have been the mule race, though the fellow in the second picture took quite a spill after almost surviving an amazing 3rd buck of the bronco.

On Sunday we had another tasty brunch and headed to the local art festival before saying goodbye. From there we drove to Oregon City, OR where we met up with Su’s cousin Greg and his kids Cici and Henry. We had a nice evening of pizza, playing with the kids, and catching up on the past few years. Also we discovered that Su had a bad case of poison oak developing. (We’ll spare you the pictures of it, but it’s really quite gruesome.)

On Monday we departed Oregon City for the long drive to Crater Lake. Crater Lake is another experience much like Mt. St. Helens. Words and pictures can’t describe what this place looks like. I’ll post more pictures at a later time, but for now here is one of the lake viewed from the spot where we had a quick picnic lunch on the northwest rim.

We also took a quick hike up Garfield Peak for a panoramic overview of the lake and surrounding wilderness before heading down the road to Prospect, OR and the historic Prospect Hotel. We stayed in the motel portion of the property, which was passable for a motel so close to a national park. The inn itself looked quite quaint and I suspect the rooms were a bit nicer than the motel portion. The dinner we had at the dining room in the inn was one of the best we’ve had in a while. The special was local, organic lamb chops. Su commented to the server that we had seen sheep on the way up to Crater Lake and they looked tasty. I’m not sure the server recovered after Su made that comment…

Tuesday was a long travel day in the car down to Fort Bragg, CA. Along the way we stopped in Redwoods National Park. We snapped a picture of me in a tree on the Lady Bird Johnson trail and a picture of Su on the beach.

After finally leaving the park we drove 4 more hours down US 101 and CA Highway 1. The section of highway 1 from 101 to the ocean is some of the tightest, steepest, curviest driving that I’ve ever done. It was very pretty, if exhausting to drive. I’m not sure I need to drive that road again, but I’m glad we did it once. After a good burger for me and some tasty fish and chips for Su, we’re finally back at the hotel, caught up on blogging, and ready for a good nights sleep (Poison Oak aside) before tomorrow’s adventure.