US Holiday Day 11

Eureka to Crater Lake
Eureka is a strange place, it has a different feel to the rest of California. It is cold (relatively compared to previous days) and foggy. We arrived late last night and needed food. There was a McDonalds across the car park so that would have to do. The girls, both vegetarian, scanned the menu without success so went inside to ask what options were available
“Do you do veggie burger please?”
 “A what?”
“You know a veggie burger”
“Do you mean a burger wrapped in a lettuce leaf?”
“No , a burger made with beans and pulses and things”
“ John help”
John (senior management I assume) “A veggie burger? No we don’t do things like that. The last vegetarian round here died out about 12 years ago. Can’t help you”
We left. After a while we laughed
A long and relatively uneventful drive to Heidi’s motel near Crater Lake today, still chuckling about McD's. We had to book the accomodation directly and by phone rather than the internet. I had a nice chat with Heidi in January when booking the rooms and although it was 6 months later she remembered our conversation.  That sort of reception makes you feel very welcome, nice people.
We arrived earlier than we expected we took the opportunity to drive to Crater Lake. Although we knew we were going to a lake it was strange driving up and up this mountain. As we got higher we could see evidence of avalanches taking trees and in places the road out, lots of repairs being made. Then we were driving with snow drifts on either side, admittedly only where it was shaded from the sun, but still quite deep. And no lake in sight.We finally reached the corner around which we could see Rim Village. On the other side was the lake, deep deep blue very steep sides and almost circular in shape with an island (a small volcanic cone) to one side. We have seen a lot of sights on this holiday but this was one of the most breath taking, it looked exactly how a fairy tale lake should look, only the castle was missing.

 We had planned to go on a boat trip on the lake but found none were working until 1st of July and also the circular rim road was not completely open. Our plans for the following day were thrown out the window.