Holiday to Pacific West Coast in Jun 2012: Day 20 – Grants Pass to Crater Lake to Sacramento

Unbelievable day today.  We both felt better having changed our travel plans.  Heading south into the warmth makes so much more sense.

Anyway we got up early (6am) to head to Crater Lake – we were both looking forward to the trip immensely.

At breakfast we had a great experience with a pancake making machine!  One where you click a button, and there’s a conveyor belt type thing (hidden away) where a blob of mixture is dropped, and it flows through a toaster type thing and your pancake drops out at the end!  There’s even some lights to show where your pancake is in the process.  You just need a glass side to the machine now, so you can see what’s going on. 

Sad how little things like this brighten up our day…

Once on the road, other than 10 miles on the I10, the entire trip (only 100 miles) was spent on fabulous single lane highways which were like roman roads – extremely long, extremely straight and minimal restrictions for overtaking.  Fab!  How different to the trip up to Yosemite where the roads were really bendy.

The best part however was that Crater Lake had just had a dump of snow the previous night, so as we arrived at CL NP the temperature plumeted to 34f (almost freezing).

When we paid our $10 entrance fee the lady highlighted that the West rim and East rim roads were closed due to snow, and there was very little to see due to the clouds.  We were well disappointed – we were hoping to drive around the lake, and possibly even take a boat tour.

However we made it up to the village (driving very carefully at this stage – even the lady at the entrance highlighted how poorly Mustangs cope with icey/snowy roads), and along with one or two other souls we made it into the cafe to grab a warm coffee.

The staff in the restaurant highlighted that the outlook wasn’t too promising and that more snow was due at around 11am.

We walked to the rim and it was a bit like the Grand Canyon where everything just opens up in front of you.  To start with we couldn’t really see much at all, but over the course of 30 mins or so, the cloud cleared and we got some great shots of CL.  It is truly stunning and well worth the drive.  We wish we could have stayed longer, but we didn’t want to get snowed in, so we decided we would leave and come back another day.  We were disappointed at how little we had seen, but we got a glimpse of somewhere we will come back to a some stage in the future.

At this point a minor change to our CR was agreed – since we were done with CL by 10am, we decided we may as well head as far south as we could to create some extra time in the warmth of the south.  We had planned on stopping at Klamath Falls, but we were now thinking about pressing on to Redding or even Sacramento.

Again the roads down from CLNP to Klamath Falls were brilliant.  Long straight roads with easy overtaking, so progress was rapid.  We found a Starbucks in a Safeway at Klamath Falls (although we didn’t actually have a coffee – we continue to surprise people don’t we!), and used their wifi to make some final alterations to hotel bookings etc.

We have been tangling with our Sat Nav from time to time, and getting back on to Highway 97 from Klamath Falls was difficult.  The Sat Nav wanted to take us down a road that was closed, so we spent 20 mins driving around trying to find an alternative.  The next 40 miles before joining up with the I5 was completed a lot more slowly due to the amount of traffic and bozos travelling close to each other and not bothering to overtake, (probably because they don’t know how to without a 16 lane highway), so consequently I got a little frustrated.

We reached Mount Shasta just as we joined the I5 where we stopped for lunch at an all you can eat pizza/salad place (and Nige did!).  Nothing special but it was a nice change.

Vick had a spell at driving for the next 80 miles or so, and then I finished off the trip to Sacramento.  In total we drove 450 miles today so it’s been a bit of a slog, but we will see the benefits in the next few days.

Once we had checked in to the Hilton Garden Inn (HGI) at Sacramento we had a swim in the heated swimming pool (and it was heated), and popped out to Chevy’s a hip Mexican place where we sat outside and got fairly cold since it was in the shade.  However it overlooked the river and there was a marina etc, so it was a pleasant experience.

Today we have seen a 48f difference between Crater Lake and Sacramento.  Over the holiday we have seen a difference of 83f – remember Palm Springs at 117f?

Looking forward to the game tomorrow and we will now be based at the hotel in Sacramento, rather than being in the middle of travelling, so we will be able to watch in peace.

Stats for Day 19: 475 miles, 2 Starbucks coffees, 0 Hollywood celebs spotted (not even a dog), 0 Subway inches consumed, about even on the calories.

Plan for tomorrow is to watch the footie and probably visit the number 1 Sacramento visitors’ attraction – a railroad museum!!!

Follow the whole story here: Holiday to Pacific West Coast in Jun 2012