Retro Fashions and Crater Lake

Our winery day culminates in dinner out with Floyd and Beverly at their favorite restaurant. I have to tell you, these folks are going upscale! We had a fabulous meal at a 'lifestyle mall' which has everything you could want and many things you don't: Starbucks, Borders, etc. etc. etc. But McCormick and Schmick is a fabulous restaurant featuring local seafood, including salmon of several varieties, which I couldn't eat after seeing them swim upstream at the Bonneville fish ladders, (see Columbia Gorge entry) and of course, fresh back from the wi ne country we picked the WellaKenzie Pinot and -no regrets and a second bottle later, Floyd regaled us with stories of his first job interview for the Bureau of the Budget for the State of Illinois.

It's 1972 or so, and Floyd has a fresh-out-of-the-box PhD in English*, a baby on the way, and a mustard-colored suit he bought on Carnaby Street in London. He wears the jacket, but forgets to pack the pants for his trip from Carbondale to Springfield, and has to wear turquoise velvet jeans. Still, he does have the fuschia shirt that he wears with the suit, and the mustard colored tie, and amazingly enough, they hire him. Why? He points out that he can write, having already published some poetry. I cannot do justice to this story, but the image of Floyd, frizzy hair, full beard, Carnaby Street suit jacket and fuschia shirt, against the backdrop of state government in Springfield in 1972, gives me pause.

The next morning, we leave the Hotel Grime with no regrets, although it's hard to leave Floyd and Beverly after such a wonderful reconnection with them. The Archaeology Car and its antidiluvean owner are gone, and we head south toward Crater Lake, a 2000-foot deep volcanic lake south and slightly east of Eugene. In Eugene, Ethan again hits the jackpot at the pet boutique. He meets other dogs, lunches with us in an outdoor area of the Fifth Street shopping district, and finds -- wonder of wonders! more Merrick Food. We pick the Napa Valley Picnic - duck, chicken, sweet potato, sweet sugar peas -- in honor of our impending cross over the border into California. We pick Grammy's Pot Pie for those nights when he longs for home. He's set.

Our first view of Crater Lake is a stunning one. Pristine blue water in a deep, deep caldera, it is one of the deepest lakes in the world, and the sheer cliff sides remind us of our OTHER caldera, in Santorini. Volcanic eruption collapsed a 12,000-foot mountain some 7700 years ago, leaving a gypsum desert and a deep lake. No telling what happened to the folks living in the area, which there were. A series of glaciers finished the job.

We push on to Klamath Falls, expecting nothing special, and find a dog-friendly hotel. We do find, however, several pleasant surprises and one not so pleasant surprise.

Pleasant: Walking/biking trails that go all over the town of 6600 people. Ethan gets a proper evening walk and an even proper-er morning walk. I get some great early morning pictures.

Pleasant: Mr. B's Steakhouse. We anticipated a honky-tonk beer and steak hunting-guy restaurant, and we got a gourmet restaurant with some of the best steak and Veal Oscar (respectively) we'd ever eaten. (I know, I know...I can't eat salmon because of the ladders at Bonneville, but I don't mind eating a baby cow. Go figure. )A glass of Elk Cove Pinot finishes off the meal, and we headed back to the hotel-- Jacuzzi tub waiting for me.

Not so pleasant: I turn on the tub - can't turn the shower off. Use the shower to fill the tub. Turn the shower off, start to hop in the Jacuzzi, and cannot turn the water off. It's draining without spilling over the rim, but just barely. We call the motel office, and I start bailing water with an ice bucket, soaking the bottoms of my pajamas in the process. Jim tries to take apart the shower head with a butter knife (of course we can't find the Swiss Army Knife).

We get another room, which we move to carrying our possessions like refugees, me in my pajamas and wet hair, Ethan on lead through the hotel parking lot. I'm tired. Jim's mad. Ethan's curious. The hotel night clerk is apologetic. We check into a new room. Then we discover in my attempt to turn on the jets for the Jacuzzi, I had actually turned on the water. Totally different operation from the shower. It was turned off. Jim laughs at me and I remind this man that he once threw his wallet away in Florida the morning after a healthy phone rant with Ray. (See previous post, "Hanging with the Hooligans," for the back story on these guys and their rants. )

No matter, no harm done, but in somewhere named Klamath Falls, I thought the water would never quit running. Tomorrow: Over the Cascades again, and on to Redding,

*I have been asked by Floyd to correct this statement. .He did NOT have a PhD, but HAD done all the work for it but the dissertation. Right, Floyd???