Crater Lake and Lassen Volcano

We headed up to Oregon over the weekend to visit Crater Lake National Park.  Crater Lake is the deepest lake in the United States...1900 ft. deep.  It was formed from a volcano eruption that left a crater which filled with snow melt.  The water is the bluest we have ever seen!

 The small rock structure in the lake is called the "phantom ship."  It's beautiful and kinda creepy at the same time.

 The entire lake is surrounded by high crater walls.  There is only 1 place to access the water and that is by hiking down a 1 mile trail that is 700 vertical feet of elevation change.

The orange looking structure is called "Pumice Castle." 

 The faithful Subaru... it takes us everywhere!  With Mt. Scott in the background... the highest peak in the park at over 10,000 ft. 

 No personal watercraft allowed on the lake... no canoes, paddleboards, etc.  And no long distance swimming or scuba diving.  The only boats allowed are the National Park Service boats that give tours. 

 Wizard Island: 

 The Rogue River leaves this area and carries that beautiful blue water downstream... 

 The river flows into a deep gorge.  Tons of falls and fast flowing water.  

 The rock is all lava rock... very porous... but also smooth from the flowing water.

 Of course Zater tagged along for the journey... and now he's exhausted just like we are! 

 The next night we decided to drive down to Lassen Volcanic National Park.  

On the way we got a glimpse of Mt. Shasta... over 14,000 ft. high and still with snow on it in July! 

Lassen National Park... 

 Mt. Lassen peak... a volcano which last erupted in 1915. 

 Mike and Z swimming in Summit Lake: 

 Helen Lake... 

 Beautiful wildflowers and ridiculously blue water... everywhere you look! 

 The snow marker... I stood under it for reference.  

 Sulphur springs... hot, flowing (smelly) creek. 

 Bubbling "mud pot."  

We had a great weekend exploring volcanoes in Oregon and Northern Cali.  More adventures to come... next weekend we are headed to Sequoia National Park for more camping! 

The Pursuit of a Perfect Life

I post lots of pictures from our experiences out west on this blog, but it is truly never with the intention of bragging or boasting about our lives.  Instead, it's a way to document our adventures, because without this blog we would have already forgotten many of the details from our various trips, hikes, etc.

This weekend the Celebrity Golf Tournament was held in South Lake.  It was so neat to see so many celebrities in one place.  I have often thought, "How nice it must be to be rich and famous. Their lives must be PERFECT." Truthfully, after seeing the craziness they must endure just to go out in public, I happily choose my quiet little life without fame or fortune.

The truth is... nobody's life is perfect.  We all have ups and downs.  And while I only post about the "ups" and the exciting times, the truth is that even here in beautiful South Lake Tahoe, life can seem a bit crappy sometimes.  There are days that I REALLY hate going to work.  There are definitely times I get stressed out!  There are times when I feel like there is not enough money in our bank account,etc. But then I'm reminded how awesome it is that I have a job at all.  And all that stress during the work week makes our little "mini vacations" on the weekends that much better.  And let's face it... we will never have ENOUGH money to do all the things we want to do but that's what keeps us going... if we had enough money to take trips to Australia and Hawaii and Europe, etc, then once we are done... what would we have to look forward to?  

This weekend was near perfect.  We started with a hike on Friday.  It was supposed to be 9 miles total. We thought we mapped it out perfectly. We. were. WRONG!  Actually, our map was wrong.  One part of the map showed a road that we thought we could drive down... NOPE!  So we had to walk it without knowing how far.  That added 3 miles of uphill to our original hike.

The picture doesn't do the vertical climb justice.  

 We finally got to the trailhead for Star Lake which our map says is 1.3 miles to the lake... NOPE!  It's 4 miles!   Yep... 4 flippin' miles of continuous uphill climbing!!!

Zater laying down in the stream as he drank water! 

Looking down trail towards Lake Tahoe! 

Star Lake.  

 So by the time we reached Star Lake we had hiked 7 miles so far and gained 2,900 vertical feet.  Instead of following our original plan... we played in the lake for about 30 min and headed back down the way we came up.

 You would think that the downhill hike would be EASY!  Nope... just as painful as the uphill!

We were absolutely exhausted after our 14 mile hike but decided to go out celebrity spotting that night.  We stopped at Harvey's for a Cinnabon and decided to sit outside and listen to the Rascal Flatts concert. A couple approached us and offered us their tickets... no explanation... just asked if we wanted them.  We accepted and as we walked toward the venue, I realized they were 8th row!  I could not believe it.  Next thing I know, a group of about 5 people walks into the row in front of us and leading the way is Emmitt Smith.  They sat right in front of us and I'm pretty sure Emmitt knew most of the words to the songs!  He was rockin' out to Rascal Flatts!  I really wish I could thank that couple again and I hope one day we can do something equally awesome for another unsuspecting couple.

We also saw Jerome Bettis, Kevin Nealon, Michael Phelps, Jerry Rice, and SO many others at the golf tournament!  We paddled over to the beach and watched the celebs at the 17th hole.

The weekend was amazing and normally, that's all I would post about but today I had to work at the hospital and it was very busy.  I'm supposed to work less than 5 hours on Sundays but today it took me 7 hours to get all the patients seen, and that was only because a lot of them were being discharged.  It was stressful and put me in a really bad mood because I value my Sunday's as being "half days" and it's going to put me into overtime for the week.  I came home to loads of laundry to be done and a filthy house that desperately needed cleaning which stressed me out even further.  Why am I writing about this?  Because even though we live in an AWESOME place... and it seems like we are having nothing but amazing adventures... our lives are still very normal.  We still go through stuff... we just don't usually write about it on the blog!  :)

Rascal Flatts - My Wish 

(I forgot how much I LOVE the lyrics to this song)

I hope the days come easy and the moments pass slowAnd each road leads you where you want to goAnd if you're faced with the choice and you have to chooseI hope you choose the one that means the most to you

And if one door opens to another door closedI hope you keep on walkin' ‘til you find the windowIf it's cold outside, show the world the warmth of your smileBut more than anything, more than anything

My wish for youIs that this life becomes all that you want it toYour dreams stay big, your worries stay smallYou never need to carry more than you can hold

And while you're out there gettin' where you're gettin' toI hope you know somebody loves youAnd wants the same things tooYeah, this is my wish

I hope you never look back but you never forgetAll the ones who love you and the place you leftI hope you always forgive and you never regretAnd you help somebody every chance you get

Oh, you'd find God's grace in every mistakeAnd always give more than you takeBut more than anything, yeah more than anything

And while you're out there gettin' where you're gettin' toI hope you know somebody loves youAnd wants the same things tooYeah, this is my wish, yeah yeah

My wish for youIs that this life becomes all that you want it toYour dreams stay big, your worries stay smallYou never need to carry more than you can hold

And while you're out there gettin' where you're gettin' toI hope you know somebody loves youAnd wants the same things tooYeah, this is my wish

Winnemucca Lake + 5 Miles of the Tahoe Rim Trail

Last Wednesday, Mike and I entered a local stand-up paddleboard race on Lake Tahoe.  They host this event every Wednesday night during the summer and TONS of locals and visitors participate.  I've always wanted to enter a race and finally Mike convinced me (and I worked up enough courage) to do one.  Y'all... it. was. hard.  It was approximately a 2.5 mile course and it was a little windy which added a challenge.  We started in knee deep water, everyone lined up along the shore, holding their paddles and boards.  When they sound the air horn, everyone pushes off, jumps on their boards, and begins the battle toward the first buoy.  Mike and I stayed together during the whole race (bumping into each other several times while making turns around buoys).  We even crossed the finish line together!  The announcer realized we were a couple as we were paddling toward the finish and said "The couple that paddles together... stays together."  :) Let's hope so!

Thursday night, we were ready to paddle again!  On Thursday nights at one of the local beaches, they have free live music and it's a HUGE event!  So, we paddled down and found a little spot on the beach where we could hear the music, eat some dinner, and watch the sun set.  It's impossible not to LOVE this town.

Friday and Saturday were all about hiking!  The weather was perfect: 75 degrees, sunny, no humidity, and a gentle breeze blowing.  On Friday we headed up to Winnemucca Lake and Round Top Lake... about 7 miles roundtrip.

Along the hike... we got some pretty good views of Caples Lake... where we paddled on July 4th weekend (see previous blog).  

 The scenery was BEAUTIFUL along the entire hike.  The wildflowers are in peak season. 

 When we reached Lake Winnemucca, Mike and Z decided to take a little swim in the pristine (and FREEZING COLD) water.  I attempted to walk in, but after only a minute or two my legs were cramping up.  It's pretty high in elevation and there is still snow all around so you can probably imagine how cold this water is.  

 After another mile of hiking, we reached Round Top Lake where we stopped for a little snack before heading back down.  

 Lake Winnemucca from higher elevation: 

 On our hike back to the car, we took a little detour to see Frog Lake.  There are so many flippin' lakes around here!  We could live here forever and never see them all.  

Frog Lake with Elephant's Back in the background. 

 Saturday we headed back to the same area, to follow part of the Tahoe Rim Trail (TRT).  We did a short through hike, meaning we parked one car and the finish and rode together to the starting trailhead.  This was one of my MOST favorite hike so far!  The trail wasn't crowded at all... in fact we only passed a few other people on the 8.5 mile hike.  The trail cut through meadows and wooded areas... there were TONS of wildflowers... lots of waterfalls and streams to cross... it was amazing.

The Meiss family moved here from Germany in the 1800's and built this summer cabin along the Truckee river.  

 Halfway through the hike we arrived at Round Lake... where we had a picnic lunch and took a little siesta in our hammocks before hitting the trail again...

 After Round Lake we crossed through Big Meadow, which is a BIG. MEADOW. 

 Zater had LOTS of swimming holes to cool off and rehydrate.  

Now that we've done a short stretch of the Tahoe Rim Trail... we want to do more!  It's a 165 mile trail around Lake Tahoe.  Some people hike the entire thing straight through which takes about 2 weeks.  We will hopefully just be doing short stretches at a time and hopefully one day we can say we've done the entire thing.  So stay tuned for more adventures from the Tahoe Rim Trail.