Southern Oregon Excursion

So I decided at the last minute to take advantage of the 3-day weekend and headed down to southern Oregon for some hiking and biking. My friend Jim met me in Jacksonville where we stayed at the historic Jacksonville Inn. Well, not exactly the Inn itself, but one of the cottages a block away. It was very, um, lacy, and homey. Though I would stay there again. We had dinner and breakfast at the Inn's restaurant, and both meals were superb. I think Jim overdosed on the huckleberry pancakes at breakfast.

Post-breakfast we got on the bikes and rode straight out of town. Up a huge hill. A very steep 6 mile hill. Without any kind of warmup. Our warmup consisted of us saying, wow, we really should have warmed up. Uhhhh....about those pancakes. Let's just say there were a few stops on the way up. After that, it was a good ride. I'd like to do some more rides in this area.

In the afternoon we drove up to Union Creek near the headwaters of the Rogue River. We checked into an extremely rustic hotel (we shared a bathroom with about 50 Asians), and managed to fit in a short 2-3 mile hike along the Rogue. Very cool geography here with the lava tubes and all. We ate dinner and breakfast at "Becky's" across the street. Did you know you can buy "Becky's" keychains and t-shirts? Who knew it was so popular. "Becky" was selling all things Huckleberry so we picked up some jam and gummy bears. Huckleberry...yum.

The next day we drove to Crater Lake where we first hiked Annie Creek Canyon (I HAD to do this one), then drove up to the main visitor center and had a bite to eat while avoiding the crazy crowds, and taking in the magnificently blue view that is The Lake. We then drove around the perimeter to the Mt. Scott trailhead where we hiked up to the highest point in the park for more incredible views. We had planned on taking the boat ride to Wizard Island, but being a holiday weekend we were a bit late on that one and it was sold out for the day. Next time.

Finally we made our way to Diamond Lake for our last night. This time we had a very nice lakefront cabin. Dinner at the lodge was very, um, interesting. It truly was it's own form of entertainment. Check out this portrait. Seriously, a pocket protector? Then there were all the Christmas lights hanging in the windows, the bizzaro high ceilings with the lights on full bright (i.e. zero mood lighting), and the whole high-school cafeteria feel to it all. To take it to a whole other level of circus-ness there was a man that zoomed in on a Jazzie to give another patron her cane, which he did in style with a pirouette, then zoomed back out of the restaurant. (WTF?) Good thing the service was excellent, as was the food.