David Earns His Junior Ranger Badge

Feeling we earned a relative rest today, we took a 2-hour ranger-led trolley tour of the Crater Lake Rim.  Here's Kathy posing with our trolley:

Our ranger was a volunteer who snowbirds between Crater Lake in the summer and Florida in the winter.  She was very outgoing and chatty, and kept up a stream of information for the whole two hours.

At the beginning of the tour, she brutally and unilaterally selected David to hold the junior ranger board and place markers on it to show what she talked about and where she talked about it.  She pointed out that, normally, she gives the job to some 12-year-old who is interested in earning his or her junior ranger badge, but, seeing as there were no young people on the trolley, David would have to do.  As consolation, she did allow that, if he did his job properly, David would be entitled to his junior ranger badge.  Oh, sorry, she didn't have any junior ranger badges with her, but she was sure that, once the tour was over, and IF he performed his duties acceptably, he could go to park headquarters and, if he told them she said he earned his badge, they would surely hand one over.  Hmmm.....

Here's David with his work in progress:

But I digress.

We stopped several times as we circled the rim and were treated to some gorgeous views of the lake and Wizard Island.  It was a bright day, but windy, and the wind caused the lake surface to shimmer:

We also caught a good view of Mount Thielsen, which rises up over our campground at Diamond Lake, seen in the distance here from Crater Lake rim:

For those of you were not sleeping when we told the Legend of Llao, you would possible remember the Pumice Castle.  We were treated to a surprise stop with a spectacular view of that formation:

Back at Rim Village after the tour, we walked over to Crater Lake Lodge for lunch in its very charming dining room.  The lodge and dining room were built in 1915, but due to design flaws and cost overruns, the original structure was not well built.  It deteriorated substantially over the years and was essentially rebuilt by the National Park Service in 1994.  Despite this, it has a traditional look in keeping with the other great national park lodges:

After lunch (burp), we took a 3 mile walk along the rim to Discovery Point and back, which afforded us really spectacular views of the lake.  Today, the clouds moving across the sky continued to throw mottled patterns on the crater rim, the water and Wizard Island, so that, at every moment, the scene appeared to be living and breathing.  Here's one photo we got of Wizard Island in shade, and the dappled rim beyond:

Oh, yes.  Almost forgot.  David received a passing grade on his map board and is entitled to his junior ranger badge.  Just can't convince him to walk up to a ranger at Park Headquarters and ask for it.