Driving Journey: Day 3: Grants Pass

The drive from Crater Lake down to Grants Pass is about 100 miles but it's mostly on secondary 2-lane highways so it takes a few hours. Plus, much of the scenery is quite grand and one has no inclination to rush it.
In Grants Pass I only stopped to get an iced coffee at McDonald's and to gas up the car. It was appreciably warmer here than where I had been, probably because of the much lower elevation.



There's no major road heading right out to the Oregon Coast so I headed SW on Hwy 199, which actually dips into California.

Central Oregon Video Compilation

Here's a video showing assorted scenes throughout Central Oregon:

Driving Journey: Day 3: Rogue River Gorge

After leaving Crater Lake I headed West on Hwy 62 toward I-5. One stop along the way was at the Rogue River Gorge. It reminded me a lot of places I had seen in North Vancouver before.

Driving Journey: Day 3: Crater Lake

Visiting Crater Lake was definitely the highlight of my trip. I had seen incredible photos of it before but just assumed that they had been tweaked with photo software.


But when my eyes first saw the magnificent blue color of the water it was hard to believe that it was really "that" blue!



No one is allowed to climb down except employees.








You can stay overnight at this lodge.
Is it just me, or do you see a face here too?



Once you get to the rim then you can drive around it, stopping at any vistas you wish. This is a typical section of the Rim Road.
Mt. Mazama, adjacent to Crater Lake is but one of many mountains that run up & down Washington, Oregon, & California.

Driving Journey: Day 3: Up to Crater Lake

I got up early on my 3rd day on the road in order to see all of the many things that I wanted to. The first leg of the trip was from Klamath Falls up to Crater Lake, about 70 miles.



I absolutely love this shot! Imagine waking up every morning and seeing this majestic view.





Here's a good shot of the canyon that sits off to the right as one drives up the mountain road to Crater Lake.

Driving Journey: Day 2: Klamath Falls

By the time I reached Klamath Falls, it wasn't really that late but I was absolutely beat. Perhaps it had just been awhile since I had done such a driving trip or perhaps I'm just getting old!

I checked into the Shilo Inn, which I had booked on Hotwire.com while still in Bend.

The people working there were super friendly and I got a nice room with much more space than I needed.
The lake was a bit far away but still a nice vista (minus the highway in between).
I was hankering for some good Mexican food and a quick check on VirtualTourist.com was a recommendation for Sergio's.


It turned out to be an excellent choice as the food was delicious!Klamath Falls is a small town of just 20,000, about 18 miles north of California. The downtown core revealed that it had clearly seen better times.
But I try to find beauty in all things and there were indeed some nice vistas abound.