A Crater of Smoke, and the Long Night

The haze thickened as we drove into the Cascade Mountains of Oregon, through redwood forests giving way to more dramatic rises and shorter trees. It started to smell like a campfire in our RV, but we knew we'd get past whatever forest fire was causing this soon enough, once we got deeper into the mountains. The scenery by the road was beautiful, with the smoke itself creating cool visual effects.

The some create a layered mountain visual effect we thought was pretty in its own way.

But when we reached the rim of Crater Lake, it was worse. We hopped out at the main village and knew the air was bad and hurting visibility, but we were excited to get there - it was one of Jason's must-sees of the trip, and we planned to stay two nights to enjoy the lake and the views. We walked to the path along the rim, and... nothing. We were looking at smoke and empty space.

Where'd the lake go??

It was bizarre, seeing photos of this gorgeous lake about 700 feet below, and instead looking out at an abyss. We checked out the information signs to learn about how it was formed (it's not actually a crater, it's the caldera of a volcano) and what could normally be seen there, then Jason went for his run of the day while Kate and Ella hung out at the main lodge. Jason ended up returning earlier than planned because he was feeling sick from the altitude and smoke.

Looking towards Wizard Island, apparently a beautiful sight

We had appetizers and dinner at the lodge, which was a lovely place, but the smoke permeating everywhere was distracting. During dinner Ella grew inconsolably fussy, so at all times one of us was walking her around while the other ate a course. We learned from one of the servers that they often have concerned parents wondering why their kids are much fussier than usual, and she pointed to altitude as the cause (Crater Lake is above 7000 feet), and the smoke was probably making it worse.

At this point, we made the tough decision to start driving again as the sun went down, forgoing our camping reservation in Crater Lake. We had wanted to drive north early the next morning anyway to get to the path of totality of the impending solar eclipse - one of the major bucket-list items for Jason - and we were concerned about Ella's health in the smoke.

We headed out in the dark, starting with one of the more nerve-wracking drives of the trip on a torn-up road in the park (think long sections of gravel, mountain grades, and no paint). We read about a town in the middle of the eclipse's path, Madras, and decided to head there.