April 30 Bend to Timberline

Passed along behind the Cascades, Mt Bachelor, Mt Jefferson to Mt Hood.

Had a lovely buffet lunch at Timberline.

Upstairs bar-

Dining room at Timberline

Amazing hand cranked sausage slicer.

Found a webcam-

April 29 Klamath Falls to Crater Lake to Bend

Drove to Crater Lake.  It was surrounded by snow, only one road in from the south.  And when we got there, there was so much snow that you could only see the lake from the third floor of the visitor center or by walking up a snow hill.

There were amazing icicles on the building!

We are not sure we saw the webcam on that building.... but it must have been in the eaves.

We stopped at Steel Visitor Station to check on road conditions.  Located another webcam and talked to the ranger and another visitor. They heartily suggested making Bend the destination of the day because "there are six brew pubs there" and one of them is Deschutes, maker of Obsidian Stout, one of Aric's very favorite brews.  YES! no more sizzler for us!

The Closed Entry Station!

Outbound from Crater Lake, stopped to take a picture of the webcam at the entry station.  One of the many nice things about traveling the shoulder season, there were so few services available that they were not even charging an entry fee that week.

Dinner and beer at Deschutes lived up to our expectations and then... piece de non-resistance - berry pie! Boysenberry with a few blueberries thrown in for good measure.  WOW. 

April 28 Calistoga to Lassen to Klamath Falls

Started the day slowly... Left Indian Springs around 11 after hanging out on the porch enjoying the day.

We found Mt. Lassen! We found our first webcam! 

Ok what's the story on the webcams?   We have a collection of scenic webcams bookmarked, and we look at them every morning.  There are two at Lassen Park, but due to the snow, and our lack of time, we only got to the lower one this time.

The webcam is in a tree

If you want to see the current view from the actual webcam, click here... Manzanita Lake webcam.

It took a lot of hunting to find this webcam, since we thought it was in a cute little building.... but it turned out to be up in a tree.


More Mt. Lassen Info: Mt. Lassen Webcam page

A long drive to Klamath Falls and dinner at Sizzler, where we fell for the "all you can eat salad bar" which included soup, fried chicken, biscuits, gravy, taco bar and dessert plus we had "Senior" entrees, salmon for me and fried shrimp for Aric. Oh yeah, a bottle of cheap wine (which we saved half for later because it was so.... umm.. well we saved it for later.)  Ugh!  Not the best choice, but it was right in the parking lot and easy to stagger back to our room.

April 27 San Jose to Calistoga

Day 1   Mud Bath and Brew Pub

Left home fairly late... 11:45.   A short drive to Calistoga where I had a mud bath at Indian Springs.

Planned to go to the pool later....

We had a nice dinner with beer tasting at Calistoga Inn and Brewery.  The DeBockenAtor was my favorite and Aric, predictably, preferred the oatmeal stout (which was very creamy and good).

Had a berry tart for dessert.  It was OK.

Came home in a food induced haze and decided we would forgo the pool.

Had an early night.