Hilary and Theresa's Road to Nowhere: Going Rogue in Oregon

That's "Rogue" as in the Rogue River. It's all about the Rogue in southern and central Oregon. The Rogue River runs through Grants Pass, our first stopover on the way to Crater Lake. And it's Rogue this and Rogue that. There's the Rogue Cinema. All of the restaurants are called Rogue something or other. There's the Rogue Tattoo Parlor. And it's very green and beautiful, but of course all I can think about is Sarah Palin. Especially because the nice Canadians we keep running into actually say "you betcha."

Did I mention that Grants Pass is gorgeous? It sits in a valley surrounded by cedar forests that encircle the horizon with these unusual scallop shapes. The white water rafting industry is big here and a there are a million places along the river offering various camping and boating excursions. But we Motel Sixed it again in Grants Pass. My concerns about whether Motel 6s would do it for us, as we've become a bit more "high end" over the years, have been completely assuaged. We are just fine. In fact, we fit in a little better there than in some of the chi-chi resorts that we've gotten ripped off at over the last 20 years. And dogs are always welcome.

Grants Pass also has the best YMCA I've ever seen. We've been trying to keep up our morning swims wherever we can and the pool there is the size of two Olympic pools and has a cedar roof that gives you the sense that you are swimming in the forest. We have noticed, however, that there is a large retiree population in both Northern California as well as in Oregon. And they do tend to crowd you out of the swimming lanes as they come to life around 9:30 a.m. and the pools take on this "Cocoonish" atmosphere. But Grants Pass wasn't as bad as Eureka a couple of days earlier when we felt like we were swimming in Lourdes. They came with oxygen tanks, they came in wheelchairs, they came on stretchers. Okay, there were no stretchers, but there are a lot of retirees in this part of the country, and we are finding it's best to get to the pools before the water-aerobic classes start.

We hoped we were ready for camping at Crater Lake. We knew that this would be the test. Although we slept in our tent in the Humboldt Redwoods, the weather was warm there and we went out to dinner every night - not exactly roughing it. Crater Lake would be different. Temperatures dropped into the 30s at night and we would be cooking over fires - real manly-man camping. Again, we did just fine. The campsites felt remote and isolated. And there's something about cooking your food and percolating your coffee over a fire - everything just tastes better. And Crater Lake itself was pretty amazing. It is a blue like no other blue I've seen. It is the deepest lake in the United States (1943 feet) and apparently the intense color comes from the way light is reflected into such depth. What we didn't know in advance, was how treacherous this place is. The lake was formed when a volcano collapsed into itself and it is ringed by cliffs almost 2000 feet high. This means stomach turning drops from all of the viewing points (many that have no walls or guard rails between you and the lake below.) Once you are there, you see lots of warning signs showing little stick people falling to their death. And there are signs reminding us that off-leash dogs have disappeared forever. Needless to say, Layla stayed in the car a lot at Crater Lake.

When we were packing up to leave a couple of days later, we got a hot tip from our Australian neighbors about some hot springs somewhere along the back road to the Oregon coast. We found the Tokatee Springs in a lush and isolated Douglas Fir forest. We hiked about a half mile up a very steep trail and there they were. Several natural hot springs - the hottest 110 degrees - overlooking the river and the forest below. Heaven on Earth.