Postcard from Crater Lake

The journey continues:

So where did I leave off last time? Oh, that’s right…I was in Mitchell OR for 3 days and two nights. I had seen and photographed what I came for, so it was time to move on.

I got up early, said goodbye to Henry the Bear, and headed west…first stop being Bend, OR. It was a nice drive through Central Oregon, but as soon as I entered cellular signal territory, my phone went crazy. Both my brother and son were calling, panicked that their calls had gone unanswered for three days.

I smoothed out their ruffled (and worried) feathers and told them all was well and that there was no service of any kind in the Twilight Zone. From that point forward, my son insisted I check in with him every day while on the road…a command that continues to this day when I travel.

In Bend, the first stop was Starbucks to get a real cup of coffee, something that was missing from my diet for the last few days. It tasted so great! For all you folks still left in Mitchell, you should try it sometime. It beats the hell out of anything brewed in your lovely little town.

From Bend, I headed south then west, up into the backside of the Cascades. My destination…Crater Lake National Park. I had not been there since my parents took me there way back in my pre-teen days. I remembered its beauty and the deep blue colors of the lake that sits in the crater of a long-extinct volcano.

The Park sits quite high in the mountains, but the van just kept chugging right along. The plan was to see and photograph the lake and camp out at one of their campgrounds.

Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans. It was a bit chilly at those high altitudes, but that was OK as I was prepared for it. But upon arrival, I discovered the Park Service had shut down all the campgrounds the day before. Whoops! But I was not worried as I knew I would find something somewhere along the way…or so I thought.

But the big disappointment of the day was the light. It was about the worst quality of light any photographer could imagine. In that light, the lake looked absolutely horrible. The temptation was to leave the camera in the bag. But I eventually did take a few shots of the lake to prove I had been there…knowing I would never show them to anyone or use them here in the blog.

Well, I kept that promise, until I discovered the art of digital sketching. I created the sketch you see here as it does not show the horrible light that day, only the barebones black and white outline of Crater Lake and Wizard Island. It turned out quite well. Sketches can be the essence of simplicity and still be very appealing.

So back to the journey. What to do? Stay here and wait for better light…maybe the next day? That would mean a cold, miserable night in the van as there was no place to set up my tent. Sadly but inevitably, I made the decision to go south, to lower elevations and see what I could find. I am sad I could not spend more time there, but that is the way it goes sometime. Sometimes the photography gods are not very kind.

So I headed South, stopping here and there to take a few photos, eventually hooking up with Highway 97. I wasn’t sure where I would stop, so I just kept going and going and going. If you can believe this, my final stop for the day was in Redding, CA…a long drive to be sure. But I knew the town well enough to know where there is decent lodging and a good meal. Tomorrow would be a new day with a new destination, and there was already a plan floating in my head for the next stop.

Stay tuned for more…

(To see a larger version of this image, just click on it)

To see more of my work, both in photography and digital painting, please visit my website, www.corkrum.com…or visit my Flickr Page