Thursday 7 June 2012
We spent the night in the Pauline Lake Campground. It clouded up during the night and rained on us a couple of times. It’s kind of difficult to sleep with the rain drops pattering on the cave-mobile roof. At any rate we were up and about at 7:30 this morning and while Betty fixed us some breakfast, Fred and Wilma were busy picturing and posting the blog. Breakfast was scrambled eggs, hash browns and biscuits with raspberry preserves. It’s a wonder we don’t waste away to nothing while we are on the road. However cave-mobile cooking is not all that bad.
We had seen a dump station yesterday on the way in to Pauline Lake and thought we might take care of that little task before getting back on the road. Betty and Barney drove through, looked at the sign stating the dump fee was $10.00 and kept on going. There are 7 or 8 Forest Service campgrounds in the area and there seems to be only one dump station? $10.00 Come on!
We drove north on route 97, back to the Lava Land VC of the Newberry National Volcanic Monument where we got our passport books stamped. Then we headed south on 97 toward Crater Lake.
At Diamond Lake Junction we saw the sign stating that the “north entrance to Crater Lake is closed” and “the south entrance is open”. We thought that might be the case. We continued south on 97 to Chiloquin then turned north on route 62 to Crater Lake National Park. There was very little snow on the ground when we entered the park boundary. However by the time we got to the park entrance pay station there was lots of snow.
We checked in at the Mazama Village Campground around 2 pm. Fred asked for 2 adjacent campsites. Then he asked if they had any sites with hookups. The campground is not completely open until July the first. Loop F, the loop with a goodly number of hookups is not open yet. The lady who checked us in said there are a very limited number of hookups available but contacted the maintenance crew to check on a specific site in loop B and one in loop C. She was told that they had about a half hour of cleanup to do then those sites would be ready. Her computer was running pretty slow, so by the time we got checked in and paid, the sites were ready. 
We are really living it up with electric hookup, and it will raise the average cost per night through the roof, but the cold weather wins! So we will have our lap of luxury tonight. Actually at 14.50 each, that wasn’t too bad, but still double what we’ve paid so far! Aren’t we the skinflints.
After we were situated and had a lunch of salad and French Dip sandwiches, we all jumped in the Rubble-mobile and drove up to the Information Center where the passport book stamping took place. As we drove on up the hill to Crater Lake we were rained on and got a little popcorn snow along with it. When we arrived at the lake it was partially shrouded in mist. We spent some time in the gift shop where Fred and Betty located a penny smasher, which they promptly put to work.
While we were in the gift shop the clouds broke up a little, allowing flashes of sunshine on the lake and the mist was gone. We got some good photos of the lake with the wind swirling patterns on the surface. It really turned out to be a Kodak Moment.
We are now back in camp and pretty much settled in for the night. Betty is cooking up some minestrone soup which we will have pretty soon. The electric heaters are running and the caves are nice and warm. (It’s supposed to get below 20 degrees tonight) We’ll bank up the electric fires for the night and chisel more tomorrow. 
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