It's finally time for a vacation and for 2024, we wanted to see more National Parks. 

We woke up at 3:00 am in Raleigh for our 5:00 am flight. Had a layover in Denver, Colorado before landing in Portland, Oregon. 

We flew Southwest. This was a surprise to us ladies, as we didn't plan much of this. This also meant that no one sat together. On either flight. ✈️ But in good news-when we pulled in the parking in Raleigh this morning they announced in the radio that Southwest would be assigning seats in the future. So if you know ECV, this was waaaaay out of her comfort zone. 

From there we hopped in a car and drove to Crater Lake. 

Crater Lake has a lot going on at the moment. Some construction and road closures due to wildfires.  We had a short amount of time today and more time here tomorrow. So we opted for one hike before going to our hotel. 

On the way to the spot we enjoyed the smoky views. 

We hit up Cleetwood Cove Trail (2.1 miles round-trip, 610 ft of elevation gain).  While we enjoyed the downhill walk of switchbacks-the trip back up was something else. Especially for the gonna-be-44 year old in October who has done a bunch of nothing for over a year. 

The trees here are full of character.   

This is for Mr. Howlett who is a big fan of dangerous photo ops, at least in appearance. 

We made it to the bottom and with full Venable effect mode on-Kevin had to go touch the water to see how cold it was. Naturally, this was probably beyond recommended excursions. 

After all that, a trip to Walmart and lan

ding in our hotel-we have been up 22 hours. Do not recommend that part.