Two Miles and Four Feet from Home: Back to Crater Lake and Beyond.

So last night was the first night that I could not sleep. Not sure why but I found myself awake from about 2 AM on. Anyway I used the time to get caught up on the blog which is very easy to get behind on. The night was cool but all night long we could here elk making noises all off in the distance. It was crazy and pretty consistent. Anyway I did fall back asleep around 5 until about 6:30. The plan today was to head back to Crater Lake and do the East rim drive and head back out the north side that we came in. This whole west coast thing has been awesome but it has taken much longer than anticipated. Our original plan was to head up to Seattle and then across to Glacier National Park. We had both been there before but wanted to see it again however we are already at 3.5 weeks and felt we needed to be heading east to try to stay on track. Our original plan was for a 5 or 6 week trip and if we were to stay in that time frame something had to go. We decided to head to Yellowstone and stay on the North end if possible. Anyway once we got going we were at the visitor center in about 30 minutes. It was very quaint and after taking turns going in we headed out for the east rim drive. We had seen the crater already and knew what to expect however each view has its own unique angle and charm. Every time we were just stunned. We got picture after picture and even a few with Jasper. At one stop we went one mile up a hill to get a view and found out we were on the highest road in all of Oregon. There was also a group of Native Americans having a ceremony complete with drums. After taking it all in we headed out of the park and put the West entrance of Yellowstone in our GPS. It said 18.5 hours! Wow you know you are far from home when you have to drive 2 or 3 days towards your home just to be very far from home. Anyway by this time it was already 1 PM and we decided to head out on Highway 20 which was the most direct route but would have us crossing the badlands and dessert area of Oregon with not many places to stop for about 6 hours. We went for it and really enjoyed the unique views. Finally we ended up in a town called Hines and even though the temperatures were pleasant there was no campground to be found so we got a hotel room at Americans Best Value Inn. Not fancy but it would do. Plus it worked with our credit card points and would be free. Just the kind of price we needed to stay on budget. When I was checking in the manager was a super nice lady from India with a bit of an accent and of course there was me with a bit of a southern accent so we both ended up repeating ourselves quite a bit. When I filled out the car information she noticed I was from NC. She asked me what city and of course I said Greensboro. She said that she actually lived in Greensboro when she first moved here from India. She asked me if I had ever heard of Adams Farm. (Her sister still lives in the Adams Farm neighborhood.) Wow here we are literally in the middle of nowhere and we find someone from home via India. Somehow after this conversation I got a 10% discount on my room ha ha. Thank you former Greensboro neighbor! We got settled in and the restaurant choices were not very good so I went to Safeway and bought a few frozen dinners and we heated them up in the microwave. (Something we have not used in over 3 weeks.) We hit the bed about 10 and are excited about our new direction. Not sure how far we will get tomorrow but at least we will be heading east.