A weekend of National Parks

For Memorial Day weekend we decided to make the long trek up to Crater Lake National Park in Oregon. Thanks to a week of jury duty, we didn't leave Palo Alto until 5pm Friday night which put us in OR around 12:30am! On Saturday we met up with our great friends Tristan and Kurtis Hall and headed to Crater Lake. Little did we know that most of the roads were still closed there due to 6 feet of standing snow :)

Morgan and Kurtis loved their little snow ball fights

And I loved having a horse to take me through the snow :)

There was a mini storm on the lake...doesn't it look awesome!

Crater lake is at an elevation of approx. 9,000 ft and is the deepest lake in the U.S.

I thought the mini island volcano was really cool too.

After freezing we went on a beautiful drive. Sadly, pictures can't do it justice, you will just have to go visit sometime. If I could live in OR I would totally do it!!

We then drove to Crescent City, CA and saw this very interesting sight. We couldn't tell if it was water or what, so I being the only brave soul in the group decided to go and test it out. It was compressed sand that had ripples in it filled with water. It was really fun to walk on!

 Next came the amazing Redwoods. These should be on everyone's "to see" list. Pictures can't describe how massive these things are.

You can drive through them...

 You can make play houses out of them...can you see us in the heart windows :)

 You can stand under their roots...

We continued driving down the coast and saw some beautiful beaches...

and very random, giant Babe the Blue Ox and Paul Bunion.

We also decided to do a little hike, so we found a trail that led through the Redwoods to an isolated beach. There were lots of cool rocks there and we had fun exploring caves and climbing all over the rocks.

We had a wonderful trip filled with fun friends, intense games of Blokus and beautiful OR/northern CA scenery. We are so lucky to live here!