David & Ann overlooking Crater Lake National Park in Oregon.

We split the remainder of our drive home from Conord into two days. I had a few plans to meet folks, but had to give up on them as we simply didn’t have much time on our return trip (Ann had a doc appt on Tuesday morning).

Our total mileage came in at just over 2000 miles, so it wasn’t too long of trip by our standards. We drove through four states, into three national parks, by two ordnance depots (Hawthorne, NV, and Concord, CA), and picked up one hood (thanks again Chuck). Best of all, we got to hang with my daughter Kasia! All-in-all a fine, if quick, trip.

I wish I could report on a thousand adventures from California to Washington, but apart from driving (without anything hitting us while driving), our only two adventures worth noting on our return home was our visit to the Harry and David store in Medford and our stop at Crater Lake National Park.

On Sunday we went out to breakfast with Kasia, then began our trek north. When we reached Medford, we were surprised to find out that there was a Harry and David Store right around the corner from our hotel. If you’ve never ordered food from Harry and David (they ship all over the word), you are missing out, especially with their pears. As my son put it, BEST PEARS EVER! Even a couple pears we bought from their store were excellent!

Naturally, we didn’t stop at pears. We also bought some cheese, some crackers and some unusual sausages made from ham and cheese (delicious). I can’t find them online, but they are really good. We munched on our food haul for dinner Sunday night.

On Monday morning, we left early, heading east for Crater Lake National Park. I’d never been there and Ann couldn’t remember being there, so it was a new experience for us both. The morning was beautiful and we made good time driving, until we ran up behind a couple school buses. After that, the going was slow, but the tree-lined two-land road was very relaxing none-the-less.

Our first stop at the National Park was the visitor’s center, where we learned there were three separate entrances to the park (we can in on the west side). We also learned we could circumvent Crater Lake using a national park road that had several beautiful vistas of the lake.

Soon, we were driving around the lake (while snacking on Harry & David food).

We stopped multiple times at different overlooks. At one of them, Ann got the idea to do a panorama with me staring on one side, but also appearing on the other. I got the idea to remove an article of clothing. This is how it came out:

We kind of like the idea. I decided to push in farther by removing more clothes. I really should have removed my shirt for the third pose (had I removed my pants, too, I feared an arrest would be imminent).

So, yes, this is one panoramic shot with me moving two different times once she passed by me with the camera, but before I would enter the scene as she twisted. We think we can have some fun with it as we get better at it.

Finally, she also learned she could capture a unique photo by shooting inside the car. We plan to practice with it, too.

In they photo I am driving north on highway 97 in the middle of Oregon.

As you can see, we had plenty of time to kill while driving on Monday.

This is the short ending to a pretty short trip. Our next big trip will take us down to Phoenix in six months for the FC Roundup, the very last FC Roundup. A big thanks to Joe-in-Mesa who has volunteered to put us up for a couple days. I may even get to drive one of his jeeps while we are there (no pressure Joe!) :-).