Oregon...the part where no one lives.


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North America » United States » Oregon » Klamath
May 16th 2009
Published: May 17th 2009
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We left Nampa a little early and headed out towards Crater Lake and Klamath Falls. From the first moment, Oregon eluded us. We nearly missed the sign welcoming us to Oregon (but did get a picture, thankfully) and AAA gave us faulty directions coming off the exit that sent us in the wrong direction for about 5 minutes before we realized that things just didn't look right. Thankfully Karen (the GPS) put us back on track.

And the drive through Eastern Oregon showed us farms and open plains. There is really NOTHING out there. We did eventually hit Burns, but that was several hours in already. Megan had asked if there was anything after Burns and I mentioned this town called Hines. Yet when I was unsure how big that town was, we stopped in Burns. At least we thought we did. The receipt at the gas station was from Hines. So I'm still not sure how big the town is, but there is little distinction between it and Burns. Then I drove on and on and on through Bend and south towards Crater Lake. That was where we nearly had an incident.

We decided at the beginning of the trip to get gas whenever the gauge was at half. So after passing through Chemult, a small town, I still had more than half. So I drove towards Crater Lake. Well, the gas gauge kept going down and there wasn't a gas station on Karen for 30 miles. We eventually realized that we couldn't see Crater Lake because we needed gas. So we drove to the place that was 30 miles away, all the while watching the gauge go lower and lower. It was closed. So was the place 10 miles farther down the road. In the end we found gas, but it was over 50 miles from the entrance to Crater Lake and, I believe, the closest place that was still open. Ridiculous.

The gas station was in Klamath Falls, our stop for the night, so we decided just to head to the campground and relax...Crater Lake would have to wait until the morning. So we pitched a tent (mostly Megan with me helping in whatever way I could) and sat on beach chairs, listening to cars and trains going by while reading my book. It was actually serene, seeing as it was in the biggest city by far that we had seen all day. And then as the sun went down it was pretty obvious it was sleep time. Crater Lake and into California would come soon!

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