June 4
This week, Ellen's Oregon Trail character gave birth to a bouncing sugar baby girl named Hope Agath O'Brien. She (Grace), her husband Charles, and her 3 children welcomed the new baby girl to their Conestoga wagon home on June 1, 1848, Oregon Trail time. Our friend Gretchen continued working on Phoebe's underwater themed room. It looks really cool. She hopes to be completed done by Monday, but Phoebe started sleeping in there last night after I put up her new closet organizer. We finally had some really nice weather on Friday, and today looks like it'll be nice too. Last night, Ellen had an end of year party for her school's Battle of the Books teams. They all played games in the school library from 7:30 to 10:30pm. Ellen was exhausted when I picked her up, but she had lots of fun. She fell right to sleep. Phoebe stayed up late too while I finished her room, but not that late. They were both out of their rooms by 6:20am this morning, of course, and they're both rather grumpy as you can imagine. I just happened to wake up at 4:12am after going to bed around 11pm myself, so I took it as a sign and went to the gym.
It was already nice and sunny by the time we left the house for grocery shopping, and the farmers market had just opened, so we went there first. It had started up a few weeks ago, but this is the first Saturday we've been around to take advantage. Neither of us had much cash, but there was a stand selling the first of the Hood strawberries, which will probably be a short season this year because of all the cold, wet weather, so we bought a pint to see how they're coming along. I spent the rest of the morning making adjustments to the quad so we could go for a ride. The girls have both shot up a bit in height since last year, so I shifted Ellen to the back, Jada next up, and Phoebe's crank had to be lowered. It took quite a while to get everything adjusted before going out on a shake-down ride. While I was doing that, Jada went to visit her mom, and the girls read in their rooms. The shakedown ride went well. The girls were complainy until we got on the bike, and then they seemed to enjoy themselves. We stopped by an old friend's house to chat for a bit after the big climb of the day. We just did a short 17 mile route to make sure all the adjustments I'd been making were working well. We had a nice tail wind on the way out, but that, of course, meant the ride back wasn't quite so effortless. We encountered lots of other happy cyclists out enjoying the weather. Even those stuck in their cars gave us plenty of smiles. After we arrived home, I tore Ellen's old closet shelves out to get ready for her room to be painted.
June 5
It's still pleasantly warm this morning. Unfortunately, while making breakfast, our stove started having some issues. Over the last month, the door has been sticking for some reason, then last week, Jada had the same probably that's happening this morning where the display for the oven keeps flashing "lock". It may be time for a new oven, or hopefully it's just the heating element going bad. The question is if we want to go all in for gas now or replace with a cheap electric until we can afford to run the gas lines for a new stove. I'll probably go ahead and call the service center to have them look at it. After visiting Gramma, we gave a friend of ours Ellen and Phoebe's bunk bed. After lunch, Jada and Ellen went to see the play "A Wrinkle in Time" based on the book put on by the Portland Children's Theater downtown. Phoebe and I ran some errands. Phoebe insisted on selecting and purchasing a toy for Scarlett with her own "spending money." She used it all up on a new toy. I was buying cat food, and I picked up a new laser pointer. I can't find the batteries. Then I came home and weed whacked the back yard which was in dire need of it while Phoebe played in the front yard which I had mowed earlier in the morning. That's the nice thing about the push mower, I don't have to wait until I think the neighbors are awake to mow. Jada said the play was pretty good.
June 9
A lot has happened this week. Ellen's 4th grade classes started on their weeklong journey on the Oregon Trail. They started in Independence, Missouri as their jumping off point, and they have been steadily making their way to Oregon. Ellen's family met with some hardship on the second day. Her new baby, Hope, had been premature and died after 3 days. Grace O'Brien (Ellen) was heartbroken. They held the funeral the next day. Not to be concerned though. In real life, they're taking their wagons through the neighborhoods around their school for a few hours every morning learning how life was in the wagon trains across the plains, the Rockies, across the rivers, and on to the Willamette Valley of Oregon. Ellen's baby was a 5lb sugar sack she had to carry. Jada helped her tape it up in case of rain, and they dressed her in a yellow dress. The day the baby died, they had put yarn hair on it. Throughout the trip, they stop at certain points where they call on the fates which are cards with random things that can happen to people. Some people die, or get cholera or dysentery or happier things like getting to have a baby. Starting on the second day they called all the moms with babies up, and they all had to choose a card from a stack. That's the day that Ellen got the card that her baby was premature.
June 11
Ellen finished the Oregon Trail yesterday. She had gotten cholera on the last day, but it magically healed upon reaching Oregon. On Thursday, they had a big event when they reached the Whitman Mission just over the Snake River. There was a wedding, and a big party that parents were invited to where they could see the kids all come in. I wasn't able to find time in my work schedule to come in for the event, but Jada was there all week on the trail sending me occasional pictures. Plus Ellen and some of her friends video'd along the way to make a documentary of the week for next year's Signal to Noise event. In addition to all that, my fabulous wife let me ride to work every day last week. That comes out to 109 miles for the week. It's not often I get to do that. It also means that I save at least $100 dollars because I don't have to fill up the gas tanks on the cars since only one of us is driving, and Jada's school isn't that far from our house. Our oven is now completely useless so dinner cooked at home hasn't been much. I have a technician scheduled for next Tuesday, and I'm going to try to get the grill cleaned out so we can use that this weekend. Friday afternoon was the school's field day where the kids get play games and run around.
Saturday was a busy, but fun day. We started off rocky with a couple of grumpy girls turning us into a couple of grumpy adults. We went grocery shopping, but skipped the market. I picked up my bread at the bakery after we got home. We didn't end up visiting Gramma since Jada had a migraine from not sleeping very well, and all the yelling by the kids. Just before noon, it was time to head downtime to see 2 of Jada's former students earn their black belts in Taekwondo. One is now a 1st grader, and the other is a 3rd grader. It was held downtown in the Tiffany Center which just happened to be inside the cordoned off disbanding area for the Rose Festival Grand Floral Parade which was also happening downtown today. Even with all that going on, getting in was surprisingly easy. We had gotten a parking pass, and the police manning the barricades had been informed of this so we were able to get right into the area. Since we had left so early expecting horrible traffic (forgetting this is Portland, and people are generally good about taking mass transit or walking when there are big population events), we had time to wander around looking at the horses, floats, and bands as they came to the end of the route. Just a block away, there were people 5 deep, but the corner we were on (14th and Taylor maybe), we were standing right on the corner. It's the first time I've ever seen any of the Grand Floral Parade since I've lived in Portland. We spent the rest of the afternoon inside watching the trials for earning their black belts. First they had to go through their forms. (It wasn't just the people going for their first black belts, but there were people going for their second through fourth degree belts, so we saw all the different actions that they needed to master.) Next the higher level students performed with their chosen weapons which were swords, nun chucks, staffs, and some items I don't know the names of, but they are small bladed and spear type items. Then there was the board breaking which was surprisingly riveting. Both of the kids we had come to see broke their boards successfully. Not all did, though not for lack of trying. The higher degree black belts did higher difficulty board breakage including one who jumped over 3 of his classmates to sunder a board in twain. Then finally, the sparring was done with the kids all dressed up in protective gear so no one got hurt. It was a fun afternoon. And we saw a couple from our first child birth class whose 10 year old was going for his 2nd degree black belt. I didn't recognize them, but Jada did. They didn't recognize us though. After that, we took MAX down to Rock Bottom Brewery for dinner. We got in before the dinner crowd started wandering in from the Rose Festival at the river front. The menu and people are all, unsurprisingly, different from when I used to go down there every week. It has been over 10 years since we used to do that, after all. After dinner, we were going to take MAX back up to the car park, but there was a Timbers game tonight at Jeldwen stadium, so the west-bound MAX was packed. So we walked it instead, and it was probably better that we did. We got to walk through Pioneer Courthouse Square which was having some sort of flower exhibit. We finally realized that they were in the shape of the continents. Then we stopped into Finnagin's toy store where I bought a Christmas present for Ellen right under her nose. It's amazing what they don't ask us about as I'm carrying a big bag for what they had seen my pick up (a Settlers of Catan extension pack so we can play with 5-6 players) and a little Oregon license plate that had Jada's name on it. They didn't have an Ellen or a Phoebe, but they had Jada. It was the first time she's every found anything with her name on it. We eventually found our way back to our car and out of downtown. When we got home, our friend Gretchen was just finishing up Phoebe's room. It looks awesome. I'll try to post some pictures. She has occasional art sales at her home and at art shows (her business is called the Painted Table).
June 12
Not a lot going on this Sunday. We had our typical big breakfast, piano practice, chores, and a visit to Gramma. Ellen vacuumed, cleaned the toilets, and helped clean out her room since now that Phoebe's is done, Ellen's is next to be painted. She's doing a horse theme. So now Phoebe's room is piled high with everything from Ellen's room. Hopefully we'll be able to get everyone settled by the end of next weekend. After lunch we took a short bike ride. It was a good thing it was short too, because a shower rolled in just as we got inside the house afterwards. I cleaned up the grill since the oven is still not working so Jada could cook up all the meat we had bought last week before it goes bad. I have an appointment on Tuesday with some repairmen. Hopefully they can figure it out. Phoebe and I had first guitar lessons in a couple of weeks, but it went pretty well. Finally, Jada got to go to her massage appointment after finishing her Kindergarten memory books that she slaves over for the kids every year. It was probably the combination of rubber cement and lack of sleep that's been giving her bad headaches all week. Now she's coming down the home stretch of the school year, though.
June 14
I'm working from home today. I had planned to get the Tribeca in for an oil change (done), have a service man in for the oven (some time between 8am and 12pm), watch Phoebe's coral reef presentation in the afternoon, and have a plumber in to look at our bathroom leak (some time between 3-5pm). Well, I managed to get everything done, though the service man for the appliances didn't make it until the afternoon. And the parts that needed to be fixed aren't available anymore. It would have cost about half of a new stove, so I'll be shopping for a new stove this weekend. Phoebe's classroom presentation on the coral reef was fun. She and a couple other girls in her reading group wrote the skits that they put on. They all wore hats of the coral reef animals that they were representing. Phoebe's hat was a pretty good Man-o-war representation. She also had a report on her animal with pictures that she drew.
June 18
The school year has ended. The girls had their end of year parties, Jada had her end of year staff party, and she packed up her classroom on Friday. Ellen was one of the final RAH winners from her class which is a pretty big deal which shows she can be respectful, accountable, and helpful. Phoebe brought home a certificate for writing from her teacher. They both had good report cards showing lots of improvement.
Saturday was a rainy day. We went to the market in the morning and picked up our first good flat of Hood Strawberries, the best strawberries in the world. That's not an opinion either. That's a solid fact. After we finished our grocery shopping, Gretchen, our muralist, came over to finish Ellen's room. It's shaping up to look pretty incredible too. We went over to Sears to pick out a new stove. The salesman was very helpful and not pushy at all. It was pretty nice. He just gave us the information we asked for along with some feature explanations. We ended up going for another Kenmore slide-in model. So when they install it, they'll cut out the rest of our cabinet to the floor to insert it. Drop-ins, like we have now, aren't as popular as they once were, and we don't have the space for a stand alone model. We also got one with the glass top where the burners are built into the glass for easier cleanup. Plus we shouldn't have to spend money on the replacement coils and pans that we have had to in the past. We were also lucky that there was a sale going on, plus the $100 off coupon I got from the service man, plus a 10% discount for Intel or Nike employees. After a quick stop at home for lunch, we went to Rick's Custom Fencing to look into replacing our old, and wearing out, deck. We made an appointment for them to come out to see the space in person and draw something up for next week before Mandy and Nathan arrive. With Ellen's room done, I installed Ellen's closet, but it was too late by the time I finished that to start putting her bed together. I guess I'll leave that for tomorrow.
June 19 - Happy Father's Day
The girls took me out for breakfast at our favorite neighborhood cafe. When we got home, I put Ellen's new loft bed together with their help as well. Jada helped the girls straighten up their rooms. I had a nice nap in the afternoon. I was so out of it, I had no idea what time it was when I woke up. Phoebe and I had our guitar class, and then I had a massage.
June 22
Summer arrived right on time giving spring a bit of a miss. It wasn't a lazy first week of summer for the girls. On Monday, Ellen had a follow-up ortho appointment to see if she'll need braces any time soon. Fortunately, they are thinking it's still a couple years away, so we can start saving now. Ellen also had some testing at her tutoring place to see how she has been progressing in her math studies. She also had her regular tutoring in the evening. I was tracking down another set of bicycle crank arm shorteners so I can have one for each bike, and when Phoebe's ready she can have a set. I found them at a place called Tandems East where they have all manner of groovy tandem things including a longer stoker stem which I think will make the girls' rides more comfy. So I came home after work to get some measurements before going back out to pick up Ellen. I ordered the parts (and some cool new tandem socks) while I waited. On Tuesday morning, the girls had a piano lesson with their teacher. In the afternoon, they girls got their hairs cut, and Jada picked up our newly cleaned wedding rings. On Wednesday, while Jada and the girls visited with Sue, Laurie and Hollister, we got our new stove and hood installed. I must say, it looks nice. In the afternoon, Ellen had one of her friends over to stay the night. Jada cooked us all dinner on the new stove and the grill, and we ate outside on the deck. The sky was a bit overcast, but it was in the upper 60's so it was quite pleasant. They all watched the first half of National Velvet because, you know, it's about a horse.
June 23
The girls really liked National Velvet. They setup a steeple chase course around the house, and they were galloping around on their pretend horses like the Monty Python's Knights of the Round Table (minus the 2 empty halves of coconuts). After I got home from work, I heard a lot about how tired Ellen's legs were. I'm sure she was also just tired from being up until almost 10pm the night before, and getting up at 6am this morning.
June 24
Last day before vacation. Jada got the grocery shopping done at one of the stores. We'll do the other tomorrow morning. Jada took the girls to open swim at one of the park district pools, but when she got there, she found that the times that had been listed on the web site last week, were no longer the times for this week. As a result, the girls only had 20 minutes of time left to swim. On the plus side, they didn't charge them for the dip. We were supposed to have an appointment with a company that builds decks tonight to look at options for ours. However, they called to cancel due to a family issue. I started on the laundry, and put the skybox on the car in preparation for the trip.
June 25
Saturday was a beautiful day. We hit 4 stops after breakfast including a trip to the market for more strawberries. Auntie Mandy and Uncle Nathan arrived at PDX just before noon. We went to pick them up at the airport. The girls got some books at Powell's while we waited, and we had lunch after we picked them up. Jada went to visit Gramma while I took everyone else to Powell's in Beaverton since we're heading out of town tomorrow. Mandy and Nathan picked up a big stack of new tomes. I think we spent around an hour there. Both of the girls read. Ellen camped out in an aisle reading, and Phoebe sat in the children's seating area while the rest of us looked around. We came back home, and the girls played outside on the driveway. I installed some new parts on the quad to make the girls' cockpits a little more comfortable by bringing the handlebars closer to their seats. We got most of our packing done, and got the girls to bed.
June 26: Crater Lake
I was awake early in the morning (3:30am). I didn't think it would help to go back to sleep, so I just went to the gym. The girls were talking in Ellen's room when I got back. They are sharing Ellen's room so that Mandy and Nathan can have a room away from Scarlett. They get to sleep in our Under the Sea room. Phoebe says that they enter a special protective bubble when they enter the room so they can breath dere, under da sea dere (My ode to the Little Mermaid). We got some light packing finished up before breakfast. We took Mandy and Nathan out to our favorite breakfast place, the Murrayhill Cafe where we all ate way too much as always. We were still out of the house and on the road by 9:20am. We hit our first gas stop around 12pm in Roseburg just past the turn-off for highway 62 that leads to the mountain. We had been checking online all week, and they finally opened up the North entrance to the park which effectively cuts about an hour off of our drive, and allows us to drive at least the west side of the rim drive even though the rest of Rim Drive is closed due to snow. The snow canyon started pretty much after the gate. The Pumice Desert was mostly under snow, but the day was nice and sunny. As we continued up the side of the mountain towards the rim, the walls of snow got higher. They were 6-10 feet high in places. We stopped at the first pull-out where we could see the lake (the first actual pull-out had 10-15 feet of snow wall between the parking lot and the lake) to walk on the snow and take pictures. The lake was mirror smooth. I'd never seen it that reflective in my visits. With the snow, it felt like it was winter except we were wearing shorts and t-shirts. We had booked rooms on the lake side at the lodge, but when we got there at 2pm, they weren't ready yet. We wandered around the lodge, and I made reservations for dinner in the restaurant for 5:15pm. Then we walked back up the long parking lot to the Visitor Center to pick up Junior Ranger booklets for the girls and sign up for a ranger-led snow shoe hike. They still had spaces for tomorrow afternoon at 2pm so we signed up for that one. We had packed our own snowshoes for the girls and Jada so they wouldn't have to worry if the ones provided would fit. I couldn't fit mine in, unfortunately. Then we came back to the lodge where our rooms were ready. As promised, they had great views of the lake and Wizard Island. The rooms were a bit cramped, but we weren't going to spend much time there anyway. Ours had 2 beds, and Nathan and Mandy just had the one. We convened in the sitting room on the first floor in front of the fire (it wasn't really cold, but it was in the low 60's, so there was a little chill to the air) for the 4pm ranger program. This one was on bears titled "Bear-anoia", and it was given by Ranger Darby whom we had met when we were getting the girls setup with their Junior Ranger books. It was an entertaining talk, and he made the subject manner interesting. We monopolized his time afterwards as we often do in our National Parks peppering him with questions and giving him information on other parks we've been to. Then we just sat in the lounge chairs around the fire until it was time for dinner. The food was terrific. I can't remember what everyone had any more, but I had a strawberry walnut salad with grilled chicken. We all ate too much again, so we took a walk up the parking lot to the Rim Village cafe and gift shop to browse around. It was more or less at this point that we found out that Ellen had neglected to pack sweatshirts or her fleece jacket as she was asked, so she only had a light rain jacket for the whole trip. Luckily, it wasn't too cold in the evening as the sun was still out. At the gift shop, we bought sunglasses for the girls to wear on our snowshoe hike tomorrow since it's sunny, and the glare off the snow could be blinding. They were cheap, though not inexpensive, plastic sunglasses that'll protect their eyes well enough. Though Ellen won't be able to see much while she has them on. It was 7pm by the time we got back to our room, but we didn't go right to bed. We decided to spend a bit of the waning sunlight watching the lake on the veranda. Unfortunately, the mosquitoes were also out quite heavily and hungrily so we sat by the fire instead. I overheard someone at the front desk say they were 782% of average snow depth right now. The snowshoe hike we're doing tomorrow normally ends in May, but since the Rim Drive isn't open yet due to snow, they re-instated the trek to give people more options for things to do. We got the girls to bed around 8:30pm finally, but they took a long time to fall asleep.
June 27: Crater Lake, day 2.
It was a really poor night's sleep for me. I just can not sleep in the same room with the kids. They are very noisy. I think I actually fell asleep pretty soundly between 10 and midnight, but then Phoebe woke up to go to the bathroom. It was all over from there. They just move around a lot in their sleep. I tried turning on the fan that was in our room for white noise, but it had a rattle periodically that was very loud and startling. The hotel itself was very quiet in the middle of the night, but with the fidgeting, sneezing, sniffling, plus the light from the nightlight, it was not a restful night of sleep. I got up at 5:30am to shower. At least that was nice. Outside, the lake was calm and clear again making perfect reflections of the sky, the island, and the surrounding caldera walls. Unfortunately, as I was trying not to wake up the girls, I missed the sunrise. Nathan said he was able to get some pictures though. We were in the dining room when it opened for breakfast at 7am. I had some omelet which I don't recall the name of. It was all very good again. The front desk was able to get us a replacement fan that was much less rattly. Weather outside was sunny but in the 40's. We walked out to the Rim Drive entrance to the parking lot to get a closer look at Wizard Island. The girls played in the snow and looked for animals for their Junior Ranger books. We stopped back by the Visitor Center since they girls had finished the required pages, and now they were starting to just try to finish everything. Ranger Darby was in there again to swear them in as Junior Rangers for Crater Lake National Park. They got a sticker for completing 4 pages, a patch for attending the previous night's ranger talk, and their pin for completing the required pages for their ages. We had enough time to stop back at the room before the 11am ranger talk back at the Sinott Overlook started. This one was on the Myths and Legends of the lake which was also given by Ranger Darby. He has a natural ability to give a little dramatic slant to his talks to keep everyone interested. I learned that the lake level is maintained by evaporation and seepage. The only place in the whole caldera that water seeps out is under a formation on the opposite side of the lake called the Pallisades. However, no one knows where the water goes once it does seep out. They've done tests on surrounding rivers and streams to see if they can find any trace of the water from the lake there, but so far, nothing. The water is also clean enough to drink straight out of the lake, though I don't count that as part of how the water level stays consistent. We grabbed lunch at the Rim Village cafe this time. The sandwiches were good, but over priced. Basically what you'd expect at a remote cafe outpost. We rested up a bit back at the lodge. Mandy and Nathan played the board game Life with Ellen and Phoebe down in the sitting room. I dozed off for a little bit while Jada read. At 1:30pm, Phoebe came up to get us so we could head off for our snowshoe hike. They supplied some nice Atlas snowshoes which were really easy to get on and off. I'm glad we had brought the kids their own, because the child ones they supplied were just plastic mesh which didn't seem to provide much traction. Mandy and Nathan were able to get theirs on just fine as well, and they were snowshoeing like old pros in no time. We learned about the ecology of Crater Lake away from the lake on this hike which was lead by Ranger Brian. Ellen and Phoebe each got to try to wrestle a tree to the ground. The tree won both times. Ranger Brian was trying to demonstrate how resilient the trees have to be to survive in a snowy climate like this. Heavy snows bend them over, but once the snow melts, they spring back up. He also showed the average snow depths for the last 5 decades which show an alarming trend downward. Even though this year's snow pack was really big, the overall trend is still decreasing which is bad news for the animals and plants that live there. Not to mention the people in Klamath Falls that rely on the snow melt to provide drinking water. At the end of the walk, the Ranger led anyone who wanted to sled down a hill. He sledded down on his chest, and Phoebe was the first to volunteer to go behind him. She and Ellen both went, and they looked just like little penguins sliding down the hill. Jada went as well. I was wearing a fleece jacket, so I wasn't going to be able to do it very well. It was about a mile hike in all. It wasn't too difficult, but it was a good hike and talk. Plus we made it back to the lodge in time for the 4pm ranger talk. This one was out on the veranda. The topic of this discussion with Ranger Dave was who really discovered the lake. Of course, the native Americans who lived in this area discovered it first. Their descendents witnessed the creation of Crater Lake as it was passed down from generation to generation telling of how they sought protection from Klamath Lake getting under the water and breathing through reed straws. The first documented white man to see the lake was Thomas Hillman who discovered it by accident while searching for gold. He fell asleep on his mule while they were walking through the woods. He was startled awake when the mule stopped suddenly at the caldera's edge. He didn't have a great location of the lake, but he called it Deep Blue Lake. It was another man, named James Sutton who named it Crater Lake. However, it wasn't named because it was a crater itself. It was named for the little crater at the top of the extinct volcanic cone that is Wizard Island. William Steel was the man who finally convinced congress to make it a national park by labeling it worthless land in the legislation so the timber and mining industries wouldn't be so quick to veto it. It took him 17 years to convince congress to make it a park. After the talk, we remained down to watch the clouds start to come in. It is supposed to rain tomorrow. Maybe even thunderstorm. After dinner, we did see lightning on the other side of the lake. I actually fell asleep watching for it out the window.
June 28: Crater Lake - Day 3
The night wasn't too bad with the new fan. Both girls were awake at 12:40am, but they did go back to sleep. I was up at 5:30am again, and when I looked out the window, the lake was completely socked in. It was also raining. We had breakfast at 7am. I had the whole wheat banana pancakes this time. They were good. We stayed in the sitting room again, and played the board game Life until 10am. It was fun. I haven't played that game since I was in grade school. We walked back to the Sinott Overlook just down the stairs behind the Visitor Center for the 11am ranger talk about the living mountain. This time it was Ranger Drew giving the talk. He seemed a bit nervous talking to our small group, but he warmed up as he went on. Even though the overlook is right over the lake, we couldn't see it. It was just a curtain of white that sat in during the whole talk until it lifted just enough to see the lake and Wizard Island at the end of the talk as if on cue. It was still raining when we drove down to Mazama Village just inside the park's west entrance for lunch at Annie's. It was a buffet. I know I ate too much again. Always trying to get my money's worth at the buffet. The food was pretty good, though. We visited the Steel Visitor Center down there and watched a video on how they go about clearing the Rim Road. There is a copper cable that runs around the 33 mile Rim Road so that the digging equipment operators can know where the edge is since it can be a bit of a drop off if they're not careful. It takes 4 months typically to clear the road for the summer. They had just opened the west rim road that more directly connects the North entrance to the rim to the west entrance. They use bobcats to scrape away the snow down to about a 4 foot level which they then switch to large construction equipment with snow blowers attached to finish it off. They're lucky to complete about a quarter of a mile in a day in a 30 foot side to side area and sometimes 20-30 feet deep. We got back to the lodge. I took a nap in the room while everyone else went down to sit in front of the fire to wait for the 4pm ranger talk. Nathan napped as well so I didn't feel so bad. Phoebe came up to get us when it was time. Ranger Madeline talked to us about the other features of the park that aren't the lake, since it was still completely covered by clouds. Ellen and Phoebe both participated showing and talking about pictures of animals and plants. They both surprised the ranger with their knowledge of the pictures they were holding up. The ranger also gave out blank post cards that can be drawn on and sent. We all worked on that until dinner which was our last dinner here. We sat by the fire again until bed time. We actually got the girls to bed by 7:40pm, but they took a while to fall asleep. While we waited for them to sleep, we watched as the clouds played peek-a-boo with the lake out our window. Around 9pm, I noticed that the clouds had lifted a bit to let the setting sun filter through. A deer we had seen out our window earlier in the week returned, but it was immediately stalked by people with cameras. Luckily, I got my pictures before the crowds showed up. Soon, the clouds settled back in and everyone left. The light wasn't adequate for reading anymore so I went to sleep, and shortly Phoebe jumped out of bed talking of a bleeding nose and wow was it. I haven't seen that much blood before. We were all awake from 11pm-12am. Eventually we got it stopped, and everyone was back to sleep.
June 29: Crater Lake to Sunriver
At 5:30am, before I got in the shower, the lake was clear, though not as mirror-like as previously. By the time I got out of the shower, the clouds had come back in. The clouds were in and out all morning. We were at breakfast at 7am again, and Ellen lost a tooth. It had been getting loose for about a week, but it finally came out before we even got our food. We hung around the fire in the main room, and Mandy and I took some pictures across the lake. We're all going to have a couple hundred pictures of the same thing over and over again, but I don't care. Sadly the pictures will never capture just how clear and beautiful it was. We checked out of the lodge just after 10am. It took about 2 hours to get to Sunriver. We left the lodge in clouds and sprinkles, and arrived in warmth and sunshine. It was still too early to check in to our house, so we went to Bend. We had lunch at a Dairy Queen across the street from the Clocktower Outlet Mall. We shopped there for a while. We picked up some new pants for Ellen since she is outgrowing everything again. I picked up a couple more shorts for Ellen at the Pearl Izumi outlet for our trip this fall. We also picked up a couple matching jerseys for the girls. We went back to Sunriver and checked in at Village Properties to find our house was ready for us already. The house was on Lupine drive, and it was great. It had a big front room, and three bedrooms. The room the girls stayed in had a queen sized bunk bed. Both top and bottom mattresses were queens! It was really cool. Plus the room had stuffed animal heads mounted on the wall which I thought was pretty funny. Mandy and Nathan had their own room with a queen bed, and we had our own room as well with what had to be close to a king-sized mattress. We then drove back to Bend for groceries. Nathan did the BBQ honors for the burgers. After dinner we went down to the village to walk around the shops. We all ended up buying books at the Sunriver Village Books and Music store. We got the girls ready for bed and put to bed. Then we watched one of the movies that was just there at the house called Hitch with Will Smith and Kevin James. We all like the movie except for the story line with Will Smith and Eva Mendez, so thanks to the miracle of modern technology, we were able to just skip all those parts. When that ended, we found Revenge of the Sith playing on one of the channels, so we gave that the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment until we all got too tired to continue. Jada and I went to bed at 11pm.
June 30: Sunriver -day 2
Without the kids in the room I actually slept quite well. It was quiet, and really dark (no nightlight). I still woke up a bit after 6 to make breakfast for everyone. We killed time while waiting to go to the High Desert Museum by letting the girls watch National Velvet which we had brought. We got to the High Desert Museum by 9:30pm. We spent about 3 hours there walking around the exhibits. Ellen seemed to get much more out of it after her Oregon Trail experience in school. We also all got personal attention in the quilting exhibit where the girls learned how to do appliqué's. Apparently, on the Oregon Trail, everyone brought at least 3 quilts per person for keeping warm, creating separate spaces for privacy, and even wrapping the dead along the trail before burial. It's not a Pearson vacation without the learnin'. We ate lunch in the parking lot where they have some picnic tables under the pines before leaving for the Lava Lands National Monument just up the road. We got to Lava Lands around 1pm, and we picked up a time to head up to the top of Lava Butte for 1:45pm so we started out at the Visitor Center. They've really expanded since we were there last. The exhibit is really nice with lots of timeline information on the formation of that area of the Cascade mountain range and all the volcanoes in the area. They don't have a Junior Ranger program for there yet, but they did have a national forest program that the girls can complete and send in a form for a badge. We drove up to the top of Lava Butte and took the short (.25 miles) hike around the caldera. We could see Crater Lake's caldera walls from there it was so clear. All the volcanoes were visible in the area that is Newberry Crater. After our allotted 30 minutes, we drove back to the parking lot at the Visitor Center and hiked the trail through the lava flow from Lava Butte. At one of the overlooks, Phoebe felt compelled to correct another group of kids looking at the volcanoes thusly: "by the way, this is still a volcano. It's just dormant." with the emphasis on the "ant". I don't remember the comment that triggered this, but it had us all laughing. We got back to the house around 3:30pm. Everyone rested and read while the girls finished watching National Velvet until dinner. We decided to go out to Marcello's in the Village tonight since we were all so tired. Afterwards, we played Settlers of Catan with Mandy and Nathan. They did pretty well for their first time. We had to call the game early since it was getting late. Ellen was in the lead, so we declared her the winner. We didn't do much after they went to bed other than read and chat.
You'll have to wait to read the rest at the end of July when I hope to have this posted on time.
Journal Entry: July 5, 2011