“Another lake?!”

Saturday morning we slept in a bit. We stayed up late watching movies (not sure why James Cameron needed 3 hours to show a ship sinking), and Haley was sick the night before and still wasn’t feeling well. We packed up the car (aaaaagain!) and made our way towards Crater Lake. Emily said, “Another lake?! We’ve seen tons of lakes!”

Crater Lake is a volcano that collapsed 7,700 years ago. It is the deepest lake in the United States and there are no rivers that flow into or out of the lake. The water in the lake gets completely replaced over the course of 250 years. (Thanks, Wikipedia!) It is the most amazingly blue lake we have ever seen. Even Emily was blown away….she remarked, “Mommy, this is the most beautiful lake I’ve ever seen.”  Yep, not just another lake, kid.

We were going to hike some of the trails around the lake, but Haley still wasn’t feeling well, so we just stopped at a couple of the overlooks and took some pictures. With all of the places we’ve been and all of the things we’ve done, it’s pretty good that we’ve only had one of the girls sick, and only for part of one day.
After Crater Lake, we made our way towards Redwood National Forest. Again, the drive through southern Oregon was gorgeous. We crossed the eighth state line of our trip:

We arrived at our hotel and unpacked the car. We headed down to the beach where the girls walked in the water and built sandcastles. Also, Ashley caught a tiny lobster and named it Ashley Jr.

After the beach, we Yelped to find a nearby restaurant for dinner. As it turns out, the highest rated restaurant was a Mexican restaurant right across the street from our hotel. It was a hole-in-the-wall place, but it was excellent, authentic Mexican food. After dinner, we went back to the hotel and turned in for the night.