(No pictures: probably tomorrow!)
Tuesday and Wednesday nights we stayed with my cousin Janae in Sacramento, which was quite relaxing. She has a beautiful, comfortable home - she gave us the master suite for two nights, wonderful person that she is! - a great roommate, and a friendly German Shepherd. Her roommate also has a friendly Shepherd, but he's considerably more wild (which is expected for a 2 year old.) We got to spend one evening with the rest of the family in SAC: My cousin Lori, her husband Brian, their three kids aged 2.5 to 8.5, and my Aunt Jonnie and Uncle Larry. DEC and Brian hit it off quite well, both harboring - how shall we say - geeky tendencies. ;) The kids are adorable too, but don't tell Connor (the oldest) I said that! Kate, the 2.5 year old, has a very impressive vocabulary, and Macey (age 7) has apparently been writing and illustrating "books" since she was about 5. She shared a couple with us: her oldest, about a character who got eaten by a dinosaur and then cut his way out, and her newest, about a character who lost his body and had to get it back from the transporter before fighting someone with a light saber. :)

Thursday night we stayed in Tahoe City, on the NW (CA) side of the lake. I've been to Tahoe once before as a kid, and enjoyed seeing Emerald Bay and whatnot. As an adult, though, it now holds a little less attraction for me. It was windy and chilly, but more than that the lake simply isn't very accessible. There weren't many walking trails near where we stayed, the public beach was maybe 100 yards wide max, and every where else you go is private with big signs warning you of all the penalties for parking or otherwise trespassing. We very nearly couldn't find a spot to photograph the sunset - honestly, we were about 10 minutes later than we should have been for the event by the time we found a beach we could legally access. Grrr. It probably would have gone better if we'd explored the CA side down to Emerald Bay first rather than going around clockwise through NV. Oh well.
We drove by a large lake ("Eagle Lake," specifically) in the early afternoon on Friday, on our way north through CA, and it had almost no build-up. None at all on the east side, in fact, and only a small community on the W side. We were able to eat our lunch within view of it at a public boat ramp. Granted, it's not quite as beautiful as Tahoe, but it still felt more attractive to me. :}

We stayed Friday night in Klamath Falls, OR, after a fairly long drive from Tahoe. It was also windy and cold, and there were no falls. ;) (At least, no major falls: <a href="http://www.mymaps.com/nwfalls/cp/cp9.htm">one source</a> suggests there is a large rapid / fall somewhere around there, but it's not exactly advertised) However, the bed at America's Best Inn was hands down the most comfortable one we'd had the whole trip. :) Also, we ate at "David's Restaurant," (turned out to be fast food with a menu strongly reminiscent of a DQ) which amused us. We were additionally grateful to find that gas prices had dropped from the obscene $4.30 - $4.70 in CA to the merely outrageous $4.10 or so when we crossed the border. Of course, our whole motivation for staying in K-Falls was that it was only about an hour from Crater Lake and we were unable to definitely locate "safe-looking" and most importantly online-bookable lodging between it and the lake. Of course, we ended up passing several (admittedly slightly scary) looking hotels on our route, but they didn't come up on our searches. Note to all hotel owners: do Whatever it takes to get on the big vacation / hotel search sites, and let people book online! It is 2008: we won't find you without a web presence any more!

This morning we made it to Crater Lake around 11:30, and boy am I glad we waited instead of pressing on and seeing it around dusk. It was an absolutely fabulously beautiful day, with full sun on the water, but interesting clouds in the sky. There was tons of snow everywhere - on the trees, beside the roads (but thankfully almost never on them), piled up on the ground and up to the roof on the gift shop - and it made everything even more beautiful. Seriously, on one hand it was slightly disappointing to be unable to drive the whole 33 mile rim road, but on the other, I saw plenty of pictures in the gift shops of the lake at full summer w/o snow, and it's not nearly as beautiful. Besides, we didn't Really have time for the whole rim drive anyway. :} One unlooked for side "adventure": when I went to pay for a couple of souvenirs at the gift shop, my ATM card was missing from my wallet! Thankfully I remembered where it must have been lost: I'd noticed by purse was hanging open when we got out of the car at the first visitor center way below the lake. I am very grateful to the honest person who turned it - and the Costco membership and AmEx gift card that fell out with it - in to the ranger. It really could have been bad! :} I'm also grateful that I uncharacteristically decided to buy a souvenir in the first place: it was literally the first gift shop along our route that I'd done so, but if I hadn't we'd have been 100 miles away before I realized the cards were missing. Yipes!

We spent the rest of the day making our way back home, from Hwy 62 to 97 N, finally joining I5 at Eugene. This took us through the Rogue River area, which is itself spectacular, especially the views of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Thielsen">Mt. Thielsen</a> (which I'd honestly never heard of before. Amazing what you find in your own "backyard," so to speak.)
We stopped in Salem and ate at - wait for it - "Annette's" restaurant. :) (Turned out to be a medium priced place serving anything from deep fried seafood to steak to hamburgers. But they had a live jazz trio! Oh yeah: we did know it was there because we saw it in the Entertainment book last year - we'd just never had occasion to be in Salem at dinner time.)

And from there... home at last, about 7:45, 15 minutes short of the rough estimate I'd made last night from Klamath Falls.
It was a great vacation, but I am glad to be home. The cats are glad too. (I'm very grateful to <lj-user="takre"> for looking in on them while we were away!) Simon's been freaked out all evening, running in and out of the house any time someone will open the door for him, rubbing on us, kneading on us - I expect they'll both be a bit nuts for the next couple days until they believe we actually live here again. The damage wasn't too bad, all things considered, but the darned creature Did decide to pee on my kitchen rug and the laundry room floor. Had to trash the rug, dang it.

Ah, home sweet home. Back to the grind: I hear the washing machine has finished its cycle!