In The Beginning ...

... there was heat. And it was bad.

We stopped at an In-N-Out in Redding, where the temperature was 111 degrees, and everyone in the place looked like they'd been swimming or sweating recently, but almost without exception, everyone was beet red from the heat.

Shortly thereafter we arrived in Mt. Shasta. Here's the view from the car.


And here's how it looked the next day as we drove away. I'm fond of this photo.


I was not fond of this rest stop toilet in Oregon. No paper butt covers to give me any false hope of preventing other people's butt germs from touching mine. I wiped a drop of blood (YUCK) off the seat with some TP and then hovered.


And Crater Lake ...



We took a boat tour of the lake, which was fun. To get to the boat, you have to take a trail that you are continuously warned is "strenuous" due to the fact that you have to hike 700 feet down (and then back up) the crater to get to the dock. Down wasn't terrible, but up was sort of a spectacle. Hubs, only four weeks after his appendectomy, proceeded to book it up the hill, only to be sharply reminded that he is still in recovery. And I was puffing along like your granny would do. It took us about an hour to walk a mile up the hill, all the while being eaten alive by enormous mosquitoes.

Cool things you can see from the boat that you can't see from on top of the crater:

This cool dike. And I'm not just being a smartass.

Be ye not fooled. It was like five najillion degrees that day. And yet, snow.

The Phantom Ship. We're told it's made of some hella, hella old rocks. Like, so old it blows my mind.

Less awesome was the place we stayed that night, but I slept like a rock, I was so exhausted.

This TV got one channel. As we slipped into comas, we watched "Extreme Home Makeover" and "Desperate Housewives," two shows I can't stand. There was a fly swatter on top of the TV for our convenience.

The bed.

The fucking awesome '70s chair.