Birthdays, snowmobiles, and Crater Lake!!

Eli and I were very lucky to have grown up in beautiful Staunton/Fishersville, Virginia tucked in the valley of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  We were never short of gorgeous sites whether heading down to Smith Mountain Lake, going to Douthat State Park, going to the beach, hiking Humpback rock, and even just hanging out in Historic Downtown Staunton.  So while we are on a quest for beauty across the United States, we often think of the beauty back home both in the land and all our amazing family and friends.  We miss home and all that it entails dearly, but are enjoying seeing the different types of beauty that has been spread across the US…and now specifically in Oregon.

Eli likes to call himself blue collar
and myself white collar..whatever! 

This week was a laid back week from Monday through Friday.  Friday, Feb. 11^th, was Eli and Seth’s 26^th birthday.  We wish we could have celebrated with family and friends back home but instead Eli chose his BigMac birthday dinner and a movie after he put in a hard day of work pulling up more thorn bushes and cutting down trees.

 

We got up Saturday morning and drove about 2 and a half hours to Diamond Lake.  It was another beautiful drive along the North Umpqua River up into the Cascades.  It was 55 degrees out and sunny.  We didn’t see snow until about 15 miles from Diamond Lake, where there was several feet of snow on the ground.  Right after we checked in we rented snowmobiles for 3 hours, which was an amazing experience.  There are over 300 miles worth of trails in and around Diamond Lake through the evergreens.  We decided to take the trail to Crater Lake, which is the deepest lake in the United States formed from a volcano.  Crater Lake is a difficult site to see as the whole park is usually only open during August and September due to the usual 40 to 50 feet of snow that it gets each year.  Snowmobiles are the way to go as there was a trail that took us right to the top where we could look over the stunningly blue lake and see

Looking over Crater Lake!

 for miles around.  After admiring the lake, we buzzed around other trails including a trail that went all the way around Diamond Lake.  Once snowmobiling was done, we checked into our Jacuzzi suite and got ready for dinner as we were famished from the trails.  We ate both dinner and breakfast at the lodge which sat right the Lake and had a huge stone fireplace which I loved to stand in front of because it kept me warm and toasty.

A little scary...this is a rock
slide that happened on
our way back home.

The frozen-over Diamond Lake

We got up Sunday and headed back to Cottage Grove, where the pups had been kept by our landlady, Paula.  As we drove in our two pups and Spot were sprinting all over the farm.  We enjoyed the nice weather outside for a bit and then got our workouts done.  Now we are going to make chicken enchiladas to finally celebrate Eli’s birthday the right way with his favorite dish that his parents make and watch the movie, Food Inc.  We definitely had another nice week in our adventure!  J