Crater Lake and the drive to the Bay Area

So on Friday, we got up, and headed to Voodoo Doughnuts to check out why it's so popular. Let's just say, I've never had a doughnut with oreo cookie crumbs on it until this past Friday. Basically, this place has crazy doughnuts, but they are DELICIOUS. Even their "normal" doughnuts were scrumptious. Jackie actually had a doughnut with bacon on it, and then another one with Captain Crunch. I bought five doughnuts total (ate three that day and two the next) and she got 4. We then left and made our way to Crater Lake. The drive was about 6 hours, if I recall correctly, and we pulled into the place where we were staying. It was part motel, part camp ground, but all around nice. We were the only ones camping so it was fairly quiet, except for the cows that woke us up in the early morning. They sounded like airhorns. Crazy. Also, another annoyance, the whole time actually, was the amount of mosquitoes in the whole area. We had to put long pants and sleeves on to cover up, it was that bad. I actually was covered the whole way up, except for my sandals, and I paid for it dearly: 5 bites on my left foot, 2 on my right. So in the morning, we got up and headed into the park so that we could get tickets to go to Wizard Island. Let me take a step back here, and explain a bit about Crater Lake. So Crater Lake is in the middle of the Cascade Mountains, which is really a chain of volcanoes. These include, Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Rainer, Mt. Hood. Mt. Adams, and Mt. Mazama (which is where Crater lake is located). So about 7,700 years ago, Mt. Mazama erupted, and it was about 100x worse than Mt. St. Helens. Since the eruption was so strong and so much magma was released, the chamber below ground collapsed and the top of the mountain literally imploded to create a caldera. The caldera measures 5 miles wide, and filled with water from precipitation and snow melt. No rivers flow into the caldera. Also, the lake that formed is about 2,000 ft deep at it's deepest point, so it's not some shallow fill in. Anyway, a while after the major eruption, another volcano formed in the lake, and erupted. This is Wizard Island. So essentially, Wizard Island is a volcano in a lake in a volcano. Got it? So we got tickets to the 1pm boat, and found out that we got a 30 minute tour to the island, 3 hours on the island, and 1.5 hour tour back, which covered the rest of the lake. We then went back to the visitor center and just perused around and took some pictures. Around noon, we walked the trail down to the dock (1 mile long, about 800 feet down). We had a bunch of time, so we watched people "swim" in the lake, and then saw some cliff jumpers. We decided after our tour we'd do this. At 1pm, we left for Wizard Island, and when we got there, we hiked up to the summit and hung out around the crater. The trail was about a mile long and had an 780 feet ascent, so it wasn't quick. I decided to head back down after about 30 minutes up at the top (actually got cellphone reception and talked to my mom). When I got down, I decided I was going to change, and jump in the lake. I have to say it was one of the coolest and coldest things I've ever done. The lake is so clean and clear I had to go in, but it was about 52ºF so my body got a bit of shock. I went in about 3 times, staying no longer than a minute in, because it was too cold. A few other people jumped in as well. On the boat ride back we saw a bunch of other really cool formations, and learned more about the lake. I need to say that everywhere you look is absolutely beautiful (yes we had an amazing day weatherwise, but still). I took over 200 pictures that day, I just couldn't stop snapping them. Here's one:
So when we got back, we decided to cliff jump. It was a thrill, but freezing. Luckily the sun was still up and warm. After plodding back up to the rim, we drove to one of the restaurants in the park (buffet) and then came back to the tent, and almost immediately went to bed.

In the morning, we packed up and were out before 9AM, and headed toward San Francisco. We decided to drive down US-101 (which took about 3-4 hours to get to), which took us along the very northern California coast and through Redwood National Forest. Our destination was San Francisco International airport to pick up my friend John, who we were going to stay with. We ended up driving over the Golden Gate Bridge, but in a dense fog, so you could barely see it, and then through downtown San Francisco. We picked up John, and then drove to his place in Cupertino, which is in Silicon Valley (he interns at Apple). And that's where I am right now. Just did some laundry, and about to head out to Lake Tahoe, then on to Utah. Will update when we get out there.