wow - Oregon's beautiful too!

so why do I still live in Wisconsin, anyway?! With so many beautiful places in the U.S. ...

We stopped at Watson Falls, the highest waterfall in southern Oregon. First we had a picnic lunch with this beautiful view, then we hiked up, and up, and up to view the main event. I said to Greg "hmm... I'm not sure how much further I can go." Then proceeded to go to the end of the trail, about halfway up the waterfall, close enough to get not just mist, but water droplets, on me! (higher and way closer than the second picture)

We continued on towards Crater Lake. I noticed that the trees were very different than we had seen recently. The trunks are really skinny, and the trees are still super tall, so it looks kind of like a forest of toothpicks. Well... I guess it could be, eventually...

A view of Mt Thielsen. wow.

As you may have noticed in that last picture, there was a bit of snow on the ground. Soon that "bit" became a LOT! Yes, really, this is SNOW! And not just in one little area. All of Crater Lake National Park is like this. Well, ok, I can't say for certainty that it is all like this right now, as the East Road is still closed. So it is probably even worse on that road! We were only able to drive around maybe 1/3rd of the lake. And brrr... it was dang cold. Thank goodness for chaps and a heated jacket!

Crater Lake itself is beautiful. It is the most amazing shade of blue. The lake is in the caldera created by the eruption of Mt Mazama almost 7700 years ago, and it is the deepest lake in the U.S., with a max depth of 1932 feet.

Our last stop for the day was at Upper Rogue Gorge. Huge volumes of water pound through a narrow gorge. Out of my many photos, I liked this one of a small section of the gorge because of the rainbow showing in the mist.