Labor Day Road Trip with The Car That Doesn't Get Dog Sick

As soon as I download photos from the camera, I will add them to this post.

With spur of the moment decision-making, Eddie, my folks, my brother Scotty, and I went on the "Labor Day Road Trip With the Car That Doesn't Get Dog Sick!" on Saturday. And, yes, sometimes general Kingston silliness ensued.

Two and a half days and 600 miles later, we are home again.

What'd we do? Well, we thought we'd go to Wildlife Safari and since I heard that it was better to go in the morning, we decided to go Sunday morning and stay the night in Roseburg. However, after we got to Roseburg and our hotel, we decided to go to Crater Lake, then Ashland (where I'd already booked a hotel) and then on our way home, stop by Wildlife Safari, but then on Sunday, after Crater Lake, my brother mentioned the Oregon Vortex, so we decided to fit that in as well. Confused about our itinerary? Here it is:

Saturday afternoon - drive to Roseburg; then we drove up the Umpqua River to find waterfalls, but the trail was closed : (. So, we just got take-out and hung out in our rooms and watched movies since the day had been cool, cloudy, with some showers. Got up the next day to sunshine (a pocket over Roseburg) and then drove to Crater Lake. On the way, Dad decided that we should pronounce the words on the signs as if you had to say every letter. So, b-o-u-l-d-e-r became "bo-ul-der" and "debris" became "de-bris" or "deb-ris". We all got a chuckle out of the words - including Eddie. That's the Kingston silliness I mentioned - also on the way to Roseburg, we (well, I started it, but it was something Dad always did when we were growing up) baa'd at the sheep, mooed at the cows, etc.

Crater Lake was really cool. I mean, really really really chilly and cold cool. We were up about 6900 feet in elevation after all. It was 37 degrees with a wind chill up there. And, a fog came up. We stopped at one look-out and we could see Wizard Island, but within the five minutes we were there watching, the fog came in and partly covered the island. It looked pretty cool. We made a couple more stops before getting to Rim Village - looked around up there and at the gift shop.

Here's a picture of Eddie and me with Wizard Island behind us. We look cold, eh?



Wizard Island with the sun shining on it:


Eddie and my folks wouldn't get out of the car because of the cold.



Then started driving south - on our way to Mazama Village, we pulled over at a look out and saw the remains of several fumaroles, which was way cool! (cool in the amazing kind of way - and it was still cool in the temperature sense).



I think the National Park Service was hinting at something here:



Stopped at Mazama Village just to check things out, then we started driving south to Fort Klamath on Hwy. 62, then hung a right (west) to Rocky Point and Lake of the Woods, where we caught Hwy. 140 west for a ways and then took the Dead Indian Memorial Road (didn't know it was named that when we plotted our trip on the map . . . but at least, they were memorializing the dead Indian and not just ignoring that sad part of our history) to Ashland. It was amazing how quickly we dropped in elevation to Fort Klamath and then amazing how quickly we dropped into Ashland.

Found our hotel room - forgot to get the address before I left, but luckily my friend Paula (who had recommended this inn to us) said it was on Siskiyou. We stayed at Cedarwood Inn and while it was a tad run-down, it was nice to get a family room (with two rooms, three queens, two baths) next to the pool for a reasonable price. After relaxing for awhile (and Eddie and I swam in the indoor pool), we headed to this Mexican restaurant where we sat on the patio with my folks' dog, Mimzi. (Mimzi is a little yip-yip dog - slightly annoying but in the end, she did travel fairly well, considering how yippy she gets when we go to their house.) Then, we went to Lithia Park in downtown Ashland and walked around for awhile. That was fun. Eddie climbed up this rope contraption at the children's playground.



BTW, my dad meant to say, "It's good that the DOG doesn't get CAR sick, but it came out "It's good that the CAR doesn't get DOG sick." - well, he started laughing before he finished the sentence but after he explained it, I chuckled and said, "yes, I'm very glad that my car didn't get dog sick!" (Can you imagine if a car got dog sick? It'd spew all sorts of smoke from the hood of the car and refuse to move.) (Sorry - general Kingston silliness - I'm a bit goofy tired tonight, if you hadn't noticed.)

Then, as I mentioned, my brother had heard about this place called Oregon Vortex - and once we got to Ashland, we discovered that it would be quick enough to visit on our way to Wildlife Safari. The Vortex was interesting - it's mostly how light is distorted around the earth's magnetic lines, causing things that were closer to the center to look smaller, etc. We had great weather on Monday - it was sunny with blue skies when we left Ashland.



Then on to the Wildlife Safari. We had fun spotting the animals as we drove through the safari. At one point, near the cheetahs, the cars in front of us stopped and we didn't know why until one in front of us drove away - an emu (or was it an ostrich?) was right next to the car in front of us and was trying to get inside the car window. After it drove away, a baby emu walked up to our car - and I parked next to it so that we look at it through my window. It opened it mouth and closed it a few times and then I put my nose and head against the window . . . and the dang thing pecked it!! I jerked my head back so quickly ... being thankful that I had my window closed! Then, we all burst into laughter.

Rhinos in the shade:


Giraffes on the road:


Chilean flamingos hanging out:


White deer resting in the shade:


And, our [not quite so] friendly Emu:


So . . . a good holiday week-end. Lots of driving. Lots of time in the car. But overall fun. The whole group traveled together fairly well, even the dog. Hope you all had a fun time, too! Thanks to my folks and my brother for joining us!