July/August 2022
Last Summer we had the opportunity to make a trip to Southern Oregon. Max and I have both been born and raised in Oregon but haven't spent much time exploring the South part of our state. It turned out that my dear friend and former mission companion Laura (Kuyr Barrett) was staying at her parents house in southern Oregon while her husband was away doing military stuff. So we made a trip to see our friends and explore some cool locations.
It's only about a 5 hour drive but we needed a sunset stretching break.
We stayed with Laura's parents and the boys were thrilled to find that their room had a wall of books.
There was also this lovely courtyard.
We spent Sunday going down to the National Lava Caves in Northern California with Laura and her kids. My boys had just gotten into caving a year before so they were pretty excited about a place that many different caves.
There are tons of caves below what seems to be a large flat plain.
This was a fun little Ode to Armenia. there was a cave with an entrance and exit at different points so Laura parked her car at the exit and she and her kids jumped into our van to go to the entrance. It was just like an Armenian Marshutni with all of us packed in there like sardines.
That evening we walked to a nearby park.
the next morning we swam in Laura's parents pool which is heated by the earths core...or at least a very deep part of the earth. It was warm and delightful.
Max was laughing so hard at my face in this mask....so now here is a photo on the internet of it.
After swimming we packed up our family, thanked Laura and her parents, and took these great selfies.
We then made our way to Crater lake, a destinations us Oregonians had never been.
Started at the gift shop of course.
It started out pretty rainy and foggy but cleared up as the day went on.
Max, acting out how a caldera was formed. Notice how Walter is the only one noticing his giant hand gestures.
We drove around the lake toward the one place where you can hike down to the water, taking some whittling breaks on the way.
We weren't sure if we should hike down to the water, the map said it was a strenuous hike but we were told by my sister-in-law that it was very doable with kids so we tried it out. It was steep but we are so glad we did it.
It was absolutely stunning the whole way down and back up.
And the water was so clear and beautiful
We had to take breaks but we made it back up!
It was such a wonderful trip. We got to spend with time Laura and her family and explore some wonderful places in nature.
