That's another thing about Crater Lake......best seen on a clear day; and even if it is clear everywhere else that doesn't mean it will be clear up on the Lake...it kinda has its' own weather.

I never got to play Oregon Trail..the computers we had in elementary school were still MS-DOS and couldn't play games like that. Now I feel old.


Mt. St. Helens is a lot of fun to visit.

Love Gustav's and its' sister Restaurant Der Rheinlander.....every time I eat there I always wish that Disneylands Village Haus Restuarant would convert to be something more like these full service, immersive eateries:)

The accordian player at the Der Rhienlander knows every single Sherman Brother Song:eek:

Only if you like hiking up a canyon on the shoulders of a million other people when the water is so low that it really isn't all that interesting to see.

April is about the best time to do it because the water is high making it both a challenge to stay dry and suffiiciently traumatic if you fail to do so. Plus there aren't many people there.

Of course, I once swam in the bowl below the waterfall in February, so my tolerance for that is high. Winter is the absolute best time for the gorge in my opinion and spring is a decent compromise. Summer or fall and you should just go somewhere else.

Ok, ok, so Crater Lake's too far from Portland. Well, it's a lot less far than from Los Angeles ... but it looks like we're going to need a swanking up there, perhaps next swanking season (this one's getting pretty jammed).

But it kills me to think of missing it in the fog .... and I've personally wanted to return every since it first beguiled me.

You feel old? The version of Oregon Trail I played was entirely text based and I played it on a Franklin Ace 1200.

Yeah, I didn't even know there were Windows-based versions of the game.

DisneyFan, probably not a good idea for you to ever use computer technology as a metric for saying you feel old. All you do is make the rest of us feel really old. And there is nothing worse than getting the early-bird special crowd going with a rousing game of "why, back in my day..."

See also: "expressions of amazement that we did calculus without the aid of a graphing calculator."

I never got to play it but my sister did. It must not have been around when I was the right age. I'll have to ask her what she remembers from it.

Wow....I'd never dream of doing that hike any time before June...of course I am a fair weather hiker if you will.

You have my awe and admiration for not only hiking that in February; but swimming in the icy cold water beneath the falls.

Lol. All this hiking and stuff sounds fantastically adventurous. I, however, will be traveling with a just barely four year old and a one year old, so adventures in icy cold water will have to wait.

I think that we are now going to do Monday-Thursday in Portland (with one of those days on the coast), Friday through Monday with conference stuff, Tuesday flying home (or at the Kennedy School if our flight is late enough). I definitely want to do the Portland zoo. I want to try and find a good Indi band playing during the week that I can sneak off and see.

I'm a little intimidated by the weather. The high for when we're going is mid 60's. That's dead of winter here practically. I hope I can find warm clothes on sale then.

For a Portland hotel we might try our luck with Priceline for the downtown area. I want to make sure it's close to public transportation.