OUR TRAVELS

We made it to Klamath Falls, OR after sleeping overnight on the Amtrak train coach seats from Emeryville, CA.  One of the highlights was our trip to Crater Lake which is about 60 miles from Klamath Falls.  You might wonder how we got there without a car...... no car rentals were available.  Well, we took an amazing tour with Jeri from Southern Oregon Tours.  She was very personable and knowledgeable of the area.  If you ever get this way, look her up.  She does other tours including ones with kayaks. Crater Lake was formed by the collapsed volcano Mount Mazama.  When the volcano erupted about 7700 years ago, it lost nearly 5000 feet of elevation.  The lake was subsequently formed over many years by rain and melted snow.  It continues to be fed this way as there are no bodies of water that feed it.  Its depth remains a near constant level of 1943 feet by evaporating and seeping water each year.  It is the deepest lake in the US and one of the most pristine on Earth.  There are approxima

The California Zephyr train from Denver to Emeryville, CA that's what!!!!!  We had high expectations and romanticized visions of taking the 33 hour train through the Rockies!  While the view definitely was spectacular, the train accommodations left something to be desired.  We decided to chance coach seating and not upgrade to a roomette, which was a big mistake.  Our train car's air conditioning was broken and it was incredibly hot and stuffy especially crossing the desert like 100 degree conditions.  The floors and bathrooms were dirty.  There was a sick lady right in front of us that coughed every few minutes.  When she wasn't hacking up her lung she was chatting non-stop to her seat mate who encouraged her to take off her improperly worn face mask (which she did).  We wore our face mask to avoid the germs which made it even hotter for us.  Luckily we brought most of our own food, because the cafe had limited options.  Unfortunately the dining room which had more choices

On one of our hikes, we stopped to enjoy the early morning quiet at Sawmill Pond.  All of a sudden we heard a splash......a moose was swimming right towards us as we sat on a bench near the water.   We quickly walked away and on to the trail.  And..... so did the moose.  He was a little too close for comfort.  We quickly hid behind a tree as the experts suggest.  Donna was freaking as Don was taking pictures.  Did you know that moose are especially dangerous in the spring when they have calves and can run up to 35 miles per hour? Here is a female moose with her young taken from far away. Here are two moose we saw out our condo window looking down on our parking lot. A fox was also hanging around the parking lot outside our condo window.  Look at the left hand corner of  the white van. We took the Bustang (similar to a Greyhound bus) to Vail, CO.  Vail is like a big resort while Breckenridge is like a real town. Here are pictures of Breckenridge at various times while we were here. We a