The start of our long journey east...

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We left California and started the long journey east. We were planning to go to Yellowstone, so decided on a route that took us through Oregon and Idaho so we could see a couple more national parks that had caught our interest, namely Crater Lake in Oregon and Craters of the Moon in Idaho.

The pictures of Crater Lake that we had seen were absolutely stunning, a fantastic deep blue lake surrounded by the steep walls of a massive crater. The weather was not fantastic when we left California, so we were hoping it would clear up so we could see the lake at its best... it didn't quite work out how we hoped, initially anyway! Crater Lake is actually on top of an old volcano, whose top had been blown off in a massive explosion thousands of years ago, leaving the crater, which eventually filled up with all the snow melt to form the deepest lake in the US. So we made it up the winding road on the side of the mountain, carefully watching the dark clouds roll in towards us.

Not long after we started the journey around the lake, a bright lighting strike and massive clap of thunder made us get back in the car rather quickly as the large drops of rain started coming down. A few minutes later, the rain had turned into huge hail, and it pelted down on top of the car... soon it had looked like we were covered in snow! As quickly as it started, it stopped, the sun came out and all the hail disappeared. We continued round the road that loops around the top of Crater Lake, finally getting some glimpses of the beautiful deep blue colour of the lake as the sun made it's appearance in between cloud. Even though it was late summer there was still glimpses of snow and ice by the side of the road and at the edge of the lake.

We stopped the night in a small town called Klamath Falls, which was a couple of hours from Crater Lake and then the next day left to head towards Idaho. That was the end of our time in Oregon, just a couple of nights and a lot of driving right across the State! We decided to stop in Boise for a couple of days, which is the capital city of Idaho. It was a lovely little city, built on the Boise river, which seemed to have a great outdoor lifestyle. The weather was great while we were here, so we got to relax by the river and walk through parks and enjoy the outdoor cafes and restaurants, but after a couple of days we continued the long drive east again.

We stopped off at the Craters of the Moon National Park, in the east of Idaho, that is basically made up of a massive lava flow. As we were driving towards the park, the lava just all of a sudden appeared in the middle of the countryside, as if someone has just dropped it there from outer space. It has made all sorts of weird formations, and walking through the lava flows reminded us of walking on them in the Galapagos Islands. The volcanoes were not massive, but we still had a walk up a couple to get a great view of the flows spreading out around the base.

That was the end of our time in Idaho, a short visit but fun nonetheless. After leaving the Craters of the Moon, we headed across the border to Wyoming and onto the town of Jackson, the gateway to Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks.

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