Crater Lake Weekend

Somewhere in the world there’s lake that’s 2,000 feet deep with water so clean you can drink it. Even though it’s set like a diamond in a bed of pine trees on top of a big mountain that used to be a volcano, the lake looks like the waters of the Caribbean because it’s so deep and sparkling and because without any impurities to catch the light, the water absorbs every color wavelength but the spectrum’s shortest—cobalts, sapphires, and ceruleans.

Anyway, because it’s going to be September in two days and because it seemed like it might be the last possible chance to sleep under the stars in the summertime, Lance and I drove to this place, we hiked down to the water, and we dove in. The water, mind you, being a joint-aching 40 degrees. But here’s the key: the massive chunks of rock lining the lake are toasted by the sun, and so we’d alternately dive into the icy pit and then drag ourselves out to bask on these giant sauna stones until our skin hurt.

We went home via Roseburg and in so doing stumbled upon Umpqua Hotsprings. It's all natural, deep in the Oregon woods, and deep in Oregon hippy territory. The look of shock on our faces in this self timer photo can be attributed to the fact that just after the camera button was pushed and Lance scrambled back into the pool, a hairy, naked human man on his way to the springs rounded the corner about three feet away from us and stared deep into our souls with his dong hanging out. I know I know, the human body is natural, and I'm being immature, et cetera, et cetera. Still, though—a person's gotta be prepared for a sight like that!