RV'n 4 Jesus: OREGON - only 60 miles in and I'm in love!

Let me just start with, "How amazingly beautiful and diverse is our United States?" From one extreme to the other, all types of amazing beauty are just miles apart. I don't think I would have seen it the same way had I not been able to do this trip the way we are - continually traveling, one state after another - since we are full time travelers.

As we already discussed in previous posts, I do try to see God in everything. Today, as I sit down thinking about all we have seen, it reminds me of our walk with the Lord. There are times in the desert, times in the lush land of green; there are times on the mountain top and there are times in the valley. There are times where there are no words as you bask in the presence of His marvelous glory, and then there are times where you can't bear to open your eyes to what is ahead.

I look back over my last 5 (almost 6) years since God opened my eyes to who He IS, and for the first time I could truly breath because He gave me life through Jesus. I can see times where my walk with Him has been exactly like the places we have been. I praise Him for always walking with me and never leaving me to do life on my own. I praise Him for times of drought, so I could so much more relish His full bountiful beauty. When you are so used to living in one place, then you by faith step out to new areas; WOW what joys and wonders you will see, feel, experience, and savor.

Being able to do this trip has not only been a blessing, but has been life changing as well. To see visually all that is out here, as well as spiritually gaining a whole new level. A deeper love, deeper faith and a deeper longing to abide in His presence even more! One of my all time favorite verses, one of the first ones I memorized after the Lord opened my eyes was, John 15:5 "I am the vine, you are the branches, whoever abides in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit, apart from me you can do nothing." This verse has been one of my life verses ever since. A vine, HE is the vine, He gives us life, strength, nourishment, EVERYTHING WE NEED is from Him. ABIDE - dwell - live in - I love that - to live IN Christ! The most amazing place to be - and apart from me, you can do nothing - so when we ABIDE IN CHRIST - there is NOTHING HE CANT DO! Nothing HE can't do, not us, but HIM, when we ABIDE! Love that verse, the Holy Spirit brought that verse to mind as I was sharing the above, so I wanted to make sure to share it with y'all too.

OK, so now on with our adventure into Oregon....AHHHHH LOVE IT!!!!! Our first stop was only 60 miles in at a little town of Medford, right off the interstate, so we could just jump back on when we left. We had some extra time and Momma wanted to go see Crater Lake. I am so thankful she knows places, because I would have totally missed this amazing gift of beauty that we got to see.

We settled into a beautiful little campground with it's own little lake. Ducks were everywhere. It was very peaceful and quiet. Crater Lake was our reason for stopping. We planned it for the next day so we could enjoy the whole day without rushing because of time. I am so thankful we decided to do that.

Crater Lake was about 60 more miles away, so we packed a picnic lunch and headed out. I wasn't sure of what to expect, but I knew it was a lake on top of a mountain. If you have been following since the beginning, you will remember my favorite post thus far...."Hiking Tumbledown Mountain" where, there was a lake on top of the mountain also. (if you haven't read that one, definitely make sure you check it out...Great pictures too. :) So anyways, I was kind of thinking it was going to be like that....HA, was I wrong...getting ahead of myself again....

We were off on our adventure, the highway to the lake was right through the middle of Rogue River National Forest, more HUGE pine trees, thousands and thousands of pine trees, it was wonderful. We noticed a sign for the Rogue Gorge overlook, so we had to stop. WOW oh WOW was that cool!!! There were volcanic tubes created way back and the water was actually going through these tubes from up the mountain, this was where the water came out of those tubes....Yes, we got pictures for you below. Just beautiful. After a 45 minute excursion we got back in the car heading further up the mountain, turn after turn, mile after mile, 1000 ft after 1000 ft until we reached 7100 ft above sea level. Not our highest trek, but trust me, it was high enough. (and a little side note...Mountain people/states NEED to install more GUARDRAILS!!!! I mean hello, I'm a flat lander...Drop offs really freak me out...Just say'in). So we are at the top, well the only section of Crater Lake that was open, Yes, lots of snow on the way up and at the top. (Yes, pictures of that below also).

I loved how they had it situated, you turn the corner and see the look out, but you can't see anything from the car, my heart began to race at this point with excitement, the anticipation of what it was going to look like...We parked the car at the lodge and gift shop/restaurant and walked to the lookout. As God would have it, we were there with only one other family. They were off to the side building a snowman with their boys. So we walked up on the look out pretty much by ourselves, then silence. You truly could not utter a word. My mouth said WOOOOOOOOW in slow motion but with no voice. When I say breathtaking, I literally mean breathtaking. I snapped a picture, but had to put the phone down and just stood there in amazement. Again, it was like my eyes could not grasp the beauty of God's creation, the beauty that I was seeing. There are NO WORDS to express what we saw up there.

The blue was a mixture of deep navy and cobalt blues, like a sapphire blue. My friend Lorraine said it looked almost like velvet when she saw a picture, and that was a great description, it did look like velvet. Then, as I was looking at the water, I noticed the wind blowing across the top of the water and it would change the colors (much like velvet), and the wind would be blowing from all different directions creating almost swirls as it went down into the lake from off all the ridges. Again, I am so thankful that we went during off season because the rim was covered in snow. We were in the snow taking pictures, and for this Florida girl who hasn't seen snow since she was 21, snow is a special treat!

Now for a few details about this place, The lodge area where we went was 7100' above sea level, the lake itself is the deepest lake in the United States at 1,943' deep. Crater Lake Lodge has been opened since 1915. During the summer the whole 31 mile loop around the rim is open as well as the phantom boat cruise out to the volcano on Wizard Island. I can only imagine the view from the water looking UP at the rim. (Sure pray I get back here some day to do the cruise to Wizard Island and I sure am glad Momma picked up that flyer!)

After our hour on top of the world basking in the presence of our Creator, we began our

ride back down the mountain to find a spot for our picnic lunch. All the picnic areas are still closed for the summer, so we found a cool little campground that was right next to a recreation area by a creek. We drove on back to the camping area and found a great spot, even had a picnic table, in the middle of the woods. As we set up for our picnic, we realized it was an actual camping site for the campground. They had a really cool rock grill with green growth of some sort all over the rocks, really cool and different looking. Had a great picnic and a fun time at the stream taking pictures, of course! So much beauty there! As we were leaving, we saw all the INFORMATION boards and come to find out, those really cool grills, were actually the ovens that they built back in 1935 by the settlers who stayed there. I took a picture with the full details, since I knew I wouldn't remember it all, but how cool, it was built back in 1935, gave it a whole new kind of coolness!

On our way out of the park, we noticed a sign to a waterfall, so we went there too. I am so

very glad we decided to see that as well. Yes, you guessed it, more beauty for our eyes to behold...This day just exploded with God's creation and beauty only He can create! The Master of the Masterpiece!

As we hiked down the winding trail to the 187' waterfall, we noticed a sign for ANOTHER waterfall which was 265' tall. There were a few scary little areas, but the rents did great! (it was me that was trippin...LOL). Mom and her crazy adventurous spirit is really gonna push me over the edge..and Daddy just treks right along with her ... those two are crazy I tell ya...When there is a ledge a million feet in the air, you do NOT go out to the said ledge for a better picture, you take it from the safety of being back where you can NOT fall and crop the picture...HAHAHA!!! So all y'all that told me to take care of the two of them while we are gone, I am doing my best, and they sure don't listen, when I say, OMW get away from the edge, don't go out there, don't climb up there...Exhale, I can only do so much! LOL Thankfully we went back to the rv after that! HAHAHA :)

The next day Momma and Daddy went into Jacksonville, an old historic town from back in the 1850's during the gold rush. So much of the town along with the history was preserved. Another "date day" for them to remember, walking and enjoying all of the history and reading all of the signs.

Our time in Medford had to come to an end. We packed up and pulled out heading to Springfield to meet up with more friends from our faith family back home, that moved out here to be closer to family, The Paskey's. They were coming home from a trip to Jerusalem as we were heading there. Gonna give them a few days to get back acclimated then off to more adventures with them.

Talk to you at the other end of our adventure here. I'm so looking forward to more Oregon travels...

Until then, keep us covered in prayers! Thank you for joining us in our journey across this beautiful country. I know you will enjoy the pictures below :)

Now let me end with this, I praise God for ALL! In good times and in bad, in times of nothing and in times of much, I choose to Praise HIM!!!

Serving God & loving others,
Kristi
Bob & Carol
Galatians 6:9-10

PS: If you have never been to Crater Lake in Oregon....

ADD IT TO YOUR LIST!!! IT'S A MUST SEE!!!!

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Rouge Gorge Overlook