Day 7-9 - Thu Aug 10- Fri Aug 11 - Elk Lake Bound, Settled for Lava Lake :-)

Well, to push through and get more days done, esp since I seem to have limited time, I will put two days together - the days at Elk, I mean, Lava Lake!

Before heading out to Elk Lake I decided a shower was in the cards - here is the result:

Ahhhhhhh, warm water all through the feathers!

Not a promise...

Enough of that!  Now to the REAL story...

On our way to Elk (Lava Lake) we saw a few places from my past along the way...

An odd, but awesome covered bridge!

Sportsman's Cafe in Oakridge, OR - closed for some years 

(I did not know it closed, and was bummed)... 

And the final stop before arriving at Elk Lake!  Chemault, OR.

Not sure why, but I always look in a free-standing closet 

if they have one in the bathroom - Call Me Weird? 

Bigfoot is big in these parts...  See me?

Apparently Sasquatch and Sockeye Salmon are at

the top of the food chain!

Almost there!!!  Travel partner - Maggie.

And Dad’s leg.

And Mom’s leg.

Burned areas - used to not be able to see that lake.

We wanted to stay at Elk Lake, where my family had gone since I was a wee lad, and get Spot #9, the best spot there, right next to the water.  All of the camp ground is first come, first reserved (though I hear it will change to reservations in the next couple years - booo) and there were no spots available when we arrived.  So we went to Lava Lake, a few miles down the road, and nice enough in its own right, but nothing really close to the lake (even non-Spot #9s at Elk are closer to the water than all at Lava...).

So we set up camp-er (RV, as it were).

Big camp, enough for 6 tents, bot BARELY two vehicles!

And found the local wildlife to be friendly (which is always scary - at Yosemite the rodents may have The Plague!)...

Bambi, Go to your Mama! 

...and we created a path to the pit toilets.  For those of you unfamiliar, a Pit Toilet is exactly as it sounds - a pit is excavated, and you sit on a toilet seat above it, and do your business!  No flush, no mess (well, at least not for you to clean up!).  No water waste, no messy/watery floors when toilets overflow... just awesome!

EDIT - May 6, 2024: so that never made the Blog because I am ADHD and completing things is HARD!

So there it is. And, Here it is since…

I was in Eugene and such for a couple weeks, went to my sister’s place in Southern OR for a couple weeks (was there for the partial eclipse), then picked up my friend, Jama, in LA and headed to Colorado… More later…