"As time goes by we learn that good decisions come from experience and experience comes from bad decisions."

We were extremely fortunate that we were gifted by Ronda’s brother and sister-in-law of a night’s stay at Crater Lake Lodge. We had visited there but never spent the night, so we immediately made plans. Keith and Candace knew we’d ride our motorcycles into the national park and that we’d enjoy the destination as well as the trip. At Christmas time, we made reservations, and the Memorial Day weekend was the perfect time! I mean, it’s before the summer crowds, and before the trip would have be made through the summer’s heat, so what better time?

We made reservations for Saturday night, planning to leave that morning and ride the 350 miles that day – no problem, we’ve done more than that in a day trip, so why not? We even called earlier in the week and checked road conditions and that the lodge would be open and the reservation was still current. Everything was a go!

So, come Saturday morning we got an early start and were snowed on within 10 miles of home – not much, of course, but we should have seen the omen.

We continued on, and even enjoyed the weather. We’ve ridden through so much heat in our rides, that a little snow, a little rain, some sleet, clouds, and winds were really only a pleasant change from the past. We just enjoyed our first trip of the year. The storm clouds just seemed to get worse, though, the closer we got to the Crater Lake Lodge. The last three miles in Crater Lake National Park leading to the Lodge, were especially dicey, though, as there was slush in many places on the road, but we weren’t too worried – we were too tired to think clearly, I suspect! We DID find a place to park the bikes and cover them, then proceeded to check-in, where we could take a hot bath and have a nice dinner. AFTER waiting an hour and a half for our room to be cleaned! That’s when we found out that it had been snowing for three days and wasn’t expected to clear for a couple of days. Never the less, we enjoyed our night’s stay and dinner in the lodge.

The next morning, we learned that the area had received more than eight inches of new snow and that the Forest Service would plow the road at about 9 am. So we could try to get out after that. When we went out to check the bikes, this is what we found.

Yes, its was still snowing – lightly, but still coming down. We kicked a pathway out to the main part of the road, where the traffic had cleared the slush to just wet pavement, in fact, looking out the way we had to go, all we could see was just wet pavement. So we loaded up and rode out!

In fact, this is the view of the lake from the road.

And as we rode down the mountain, this is what we saw for miles:

After we had gotten down the mountain, we were back in sunlight and our riding pleasure returned. In only a few mile we stopped at Fort Klamath to enjoy their re-enactment of a Union Army camp on our Memorial Day. Such a pleasure to see and such a paradox in a picture.

We continued our trip on the return to our home. We endured more storms – more snow, more sleet and hail, more rain, more wind, and more cold, but we had such a wonderful trip, and it was a good start for what we hope to be a good riding year!