June 1 st, 2005 Wednesday

Watch out Alaska here I come. I promised I would be back and I am on my way.

Trude my friend and I started out early this morning from San Carlos California

This trip has been in the making for a long time, with severe danger of being cancelled. Couple times due to my mother’s ailing and then my own demise. But it looks like we meant to take this trip even though the obstacles that were thrown in our way.

   Watching the snowflakes swirl around from our room at the Crater Lake Lodge is quite a treat as well as a surprise to both of us. It is quite cold and snows on and off. The lake is still beautiful, in the shades of silver gray and dark blues. Every once a while the sun is trying peak around the clouds and our hopes are up and the all the photographers clicking away then all the sudden a rolling curtains of showers blows over the lake and we run for cover. Hey has anyone told the weather guy up there that it is June?

It is June and it is snowing! Trude is downstairs checking the place out, and writing some cards. It is good for us to have some private and quite time for ourselves. We had a wonderful day driving up here from San Carlos.
Stopped in Redding and walked across their new Sun Dial bridge. 
It was designed and built by Santiago Calatrava, the same architect who built the similar bridge in Seville, Spain. I took a lot of photos and hope some of it I will be able to enter for the MPC competitions.

We decided to really splurge tonight and had diner at the lodge’s elegant restaurant. It was quite a treat. We even indulged in a drink, which I paid for dearly with lost sleep and upset stomach. Our room is small, but adequate and has a great view of the lake. Sleep did not come easy and I spent quite a bit of the night reading and doing cross word puzzles.

June 2 nd, 2005

Got up quite early, and planed to photo the lake before the sun came up. But when I got down to the car it was covered with ice. So instead of catching the great light on the lake I was scraping ice from the windshield. Then I took the wrong turn and spent another fifteen minutes driving back and by the time I got to the scenic spot the sun was up and in my eyes. Not a very successful morning but still I got a couple mediocre shots.

Breakfast was way too early and too much for my taste. But it saved us from snacking on our drive to Seattle. The first part of the drive was beautiful and scenic through some great forest and mountains. The park’s north entrance was closed so we had to back out toward the south and around the park to 97 and then on 58 to the west. Then of course we connected with I5 just before Eugene OR.

We had lunch in Salem in a park. Driving became increasingly dull and crowded with heavy traffic around Portland and then in Seattle. Finding Carnation was quite a challenge, as we had to go through Redmond and share the road with all them geeks from Microsoft. We got to my friends Beverly and Claus’s home around 6:30pm. We had a nice visit but early to bed and asleep by 10pm

June 3, 2005

Rise and shine early in the morning, with a fine mist but no rain. We had breakfast with Klaus and Bev then took a short walk up the road. What a lovely area, with beautiful homes and landscaping. Said our goodbyes and we are on our way to Prince George.

We had lunch break at Hope BC in a nice park again with our tablecloth and the picnic tote. The drive by the Fraser River brought me back memories of my trip when I moved to the West Coast with Don 26 years ago. Still breathtakingly beautiful!

Did not make it to Prince George do to our late start and traffic around Seattle and Vancouver so, we stayed at Cache Creek at the Bonaparte motel. A nice Korean couple managed the place with swimming pool and the whirlpool, which we tried. Dinner at a restaurant nearby and for desert Trude indulged in a root beer float.

June 4, 2005

Today’s is Dawson Creek which is quite a distance away, as we have to make up for yesterday’s shortfall. So on to Prince George the northern capitol of BC. We had lunch above the city in a park with nice flowers, picnic benches and interesting “loos”. Arrived to DC in good time and got a room at the Supper8 motel.  Looking forward exploring the town tomorrow.

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