On the drive we near the Columbia River which is the border between Washington and Oregon and Mount Hood comes into view. I mention that that's the mountain that we can see and it becomes a "fun" game in the van to call it Mount Rainier for the entire time that it's still visible on the horizon. The scenery in this area continues to look like it's straight out of a western with the different brush and soil. We decide to get gas and a car wash in the city of Bend along the way since it's a decent distance away for gas. As we finally get there we miss a turn for the car wash that we were planning on doing first so we decide to get gas first. We attempt to get some gas from a Mobil but the pumps are a disaster with long lines so we decide that we will get gas from the Chevron down the street. As we pull in we are informed by the attendant that there is no unleaded gas. We head in to use the bathroom and get some drinks for later in the day anyway and head across the street to the 76. They are busy as well but not as bad as the Mobil so we manage to get some gas here and then head up the street to get the car washed.
Now, if you've looked at Court's pics, you've seen how much of a bug slaughter has occurred on the grate of the van. We pull into the car wash, order the works, tip the poor guy because we know that they are going to have a lot of work with the bugs and head into the wash. They attempt to power wash them off but only so much comes off so they get a sponge and attempt to scrub them off. We let them work at it for a little bit before telling them that whatever they got off was enough and go through the car wash to get the rest of it cleaned. Abigail and Gideon have a great time and we drive off to get some Burger King before we head out of civilization for a while again.
Along the way we cross Newbury National Volcanic Monument and can see large lava flows and a big caldera which is pretty cool. The forests in the area are sparse which is a bit different than we are used to seeing so clearly we are moving into a different area. We see a sign indicating that there is a section of one of the cross roads that's closed due to a wildfire which might explain why the horizon is so hazy here but keep pushing on and arrive at Crate Lake. We fully expect there to be a delay to get in but there's actually not much of one and we get in in no time.
We immediately stop at a bathroom with a group of three cars out front with a bunch of people milling about but none of them appear to be using the bathroom so we unload to do our thing. The group seems oblivious to our being there and continues to stand in the middle of the sidewalk to the bathroom but we wade through them and get comfortable. We pack in again and continue to the drive into the park. The forests here have suffered a fire at some recent point and is less exciting than other parks we have been to. We pull up to the firs overlook though and it's a pretty impressive sight. A large crater that was created by a previous volcano that collapsed under its own weight and then had the crater fill naturally to create the lake. Unfortunately due to the fire there's all sorts of haze here still too so the view is a little less exciting than it might have been. We continue to drive around the crater and I become a bit nervous about the road as it doesn't have any guardrails and you could easily just drive off the edge. This leads Court to look up the reported deaths in the park and there are some CRAZY stories in there involving all sorts of unrecovered corpses, an explosion and unsolved mysteries. After stopping by other overlooks and the park center we leave to go to the hotel.
We get to the hotel and do some laundry, while that gets started we order some pizze from a local chain called Abby's Legendary Pizza. After moving the laundry aound, Abigail and I head out to a RiteAid across the street to get some pain killers and drinks for the dinner. This is probably the most busy RiteAid that I have seen with five cars in the drive-through and a pair of workers out front of the main door changing the trash can giving Abby and I the stink eye for God knows what reason. We get what we are looking for and drive towards the pizza joint. On the way, for no reason that I can discern a woman lays on her horn at me and flicks me off as she drives by. I make sure to speed up a bit to give her a happy wave and a few friendly honks back. I didn't see because I had to drive obviously but Abigail assures me that she rolled her eyes. Anyway, we pick up the pizza and head back to the room to wrap up with some of the laundry and then eat. The pizza is pizza, nothing legendary about it but the cheesy breadsticks were pretty good. It is shower night again and we slowly cycle through each of us showering while the others are working on our blogs or other things. After Gideon gets out he announces that while drying off from the shower he found that he had been wearing his cloth mask during the whole shower! This boy is very religous about wearing his mask which I think you can tell from the pictures of him in the picture area and isn't a bad thing considering he's unvaccinated but he also wears it while we are driving or when we are hanging out in the hotel room. Oh well, we leave it out to dry overnight and head off to bed.