Heading south for the winter.

Last weekend I headed out to see what Klamath Falls, Crater Lake and some other nearby old towns were all about. Turns out, not much.

Crater Lake is pretty, for sure:


And they have a nice gift shop, and they keep the road plowed to the rim in the winter, and the post office at the visitor center closes at 2pm. That's about all I can say about Crater Lake. Other than, I hear it's lovely in the summer.

Earlier that weekend I headed a bit farther south on my way to Lava Beds National Monument and ran across this sign:

... and I got a little nostalgic. I then bought a couple of postcards and got charged sales tax, and the nostalgia went away. (I suppose if I'd pumped my own gas I could've brought it back?)

I did have a lot of fun in the caves though. There are about two dozen that they just let you wander through with a flashlight. The other caves I've visited (Sacramento, South Dakota, Colorado) required guided tours, but for this one I showed up, alone, around noon, and asked the gal at the front desk what she recommended, and she sent me off with two flashlights ("just in case") and a map with some stuff circled. Because it's winter there, the park was empty... and as a result the whole experience was pretty amazing.

Most of the caves are upright-walkable. Some you have to crouch in places, and a few require crawling. I didn't do the crawling ones out of respect for my knees (and my closet claustrophobia), but I definitely got deep underground in a few.

(Golden Dome)

In one of the earlier caves I was about 200 feet in, and I turned off the flashlight and stood in the dark listening to the silence. The wind was loud and gusting outside, and as a result the temperature was close to 25 degrees and close enough to freezing to my non-acclimated body. Inside the cave it was a balmy 55, slightly humid and... absolutely silent.

It was amazing.

And then I was reminded of recent mountain lion attacks in the area and I freaked out a little. "Surely they wouldn't just let people wander around solo if mountain lions were in the area. Surely. Right? I mean, this is a national effing monument after all, they can't afford bad publicity." And all was right again.

And then 25 years of pop culture kicked in. I saw a flash of the Indiana Jones scene where the water comes gushing through the tunnel, and I freaked out a little more and turned the flashlight back on. And then I saw flashes from The Lost Boys and I jerked the flashlight up to make sure no vamps or bats were lounging over my head. And then I remembered the cave scenes from The Goonies, which I'd watched on fuzzy cable the night before at the cheap motel, which is soooo not a scary movie but some of those scenes!... And then another two dozen scenes from Buffy ran through my head, and then...

And then I laughed at myself, appreciated the adrenaline rush, and moved on to the next cave. And? That night on fuzzy cable? The Lost Boys! I have seen it half a million times and could recite the lines in my sleep, but there was something serendipitous about the timing which resulted in my eyes being glued to the set the whole time despite having the next day to plan and Christmas cards to glue and emails to write. (Thank you, Joel Schumacher and the Coreys. Sparkling vamps my ass.)

These weekend trips have been experiments. I'm testing my tolerance after this recent revelation... So Eastern Oregon I planned pretty well. Southern Oregon, I knew where I was staying (and generally speaking, what was in the area), and I took some guide books, and that was the extent of the plan. Crater Lake was planned. The Lava Bed caves were not, I ran across them in the book the night before and they ended up being my favorite part of the trip.

The whole reason for the Southern Oregon adventure had to do with something I read in a guide book about 500 bald eagles nesting there in the winter. I'm not a big bird fan... Well, I'm a Big Bird fan but I'm generally not into birds. The bird refuges just across the border in CA did not excite me but they did interest me and I approached them as an opportunity to relax and to test my camera's sports/action mode. I ended up marveling at dozens of species of those amazing creatures - watching raptors float mid-air on their way to doing nothing, being guided through the auto tour by the same gorgeoous golden eagle, reminding myself to just sit back and observe and not worry about the perfect picture. That day I encountered three of the nine bald eagles recently seen in the area. Two are here:

Grungy and scrappy and scavengery and therefore worthy of being our nation's emblem? Sure. Creepily watching me as I ate my sandwich while taking tons of photos of them? Definitely.

So overall, I think the plan is working well. In a few weeks I'm heading down the 101 to Coastal Oregon. Other than having a few places of interest I'd like to check out, I'm going to wing it. And it's going to be amazing. This is the start of a whole new perspective, and I'm loving every minute of it. (I know, I know - I don't know who she is or what she did with Jen(n) - but I'm also not complaining...)