Rogue River, OR

Last night, I camped in "Valley of the Rogue State Park" - the most appropriately named park I've ever visited.  As soon as I rolled in and started to do my usual scoping out of the place, I went over to read a sign about the California Trail.  While I was standing there reading, a guy comes up to me and in a soft voice goes, "Heyyy buddy.... would you like some cans?" and gently offers me some empty plastic water bottles.  It took me jsut a second to realize that he thought I was legitimately homeless, and was offering me bottles so I could get the refund!  I politely declined but had a good laugh and headed down to the campgrounds.  The spot I found was next to what can only be called a family of rednecks.  Despite the signs warning against using anything that oould possibly injure smoeone, the kids had realistic-looking pellet guns that they were running around shooting each other with.  This went on for quite a while before the dad finally got fed up, and called them over. 

"BILLY!   Stop shooting at your brother like that!"  Finally, I thought, it's going to quiet down around here.
"You're way out of range!  He won't even feel it!  Stop wasting ammo."

Then there was the couple shaving each others' backs, and the preteen couples wrestling in the grass... it was quite a wild place.

BUT I was glad to be there!  I'm finally out of, done with, through the desert!  I hadn't realized how much of Oregon is just sagebrush and patchy grass until I was extremely bored in it!   There wasn't much to see out there, so I took pictures of every little thing I could find.

A coyote.

Look closely - there is a special window installed in the side of this semi's door for his little dog to see out of!

I met this couple in a rest stop.  15 years ago they met in this exact picnic shelter, and now they're married!

I must've been bored... but check out that salt!  This is the back of my shirt.

Finally I made it through the desert, turned south at Bend, and headed into the Cascades (sorta).  Climbing up to Crater Lake I began seeing lots more snow.

But eventually, found a great camping spot (though there was snow on the ground 15 ft away), and settled in for the evening.

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This was my view from the tent window the next morning:

Exploring around the edge of the lake, the views didn't get any worse.

Look at how still the lake is - you can see the contrails from jets in the water from a viewpoint at least 1000 feet over the water level.

And then there was a gorge and some pretty rivers but my times almost out, see you in California!