The Roads Less Traveled

On Memorial Day weekend the Cascade Highway opened up to the public to allow access to all the amazing lakes that lie untouched in the winter months.  How exciting!!

The snow was 10 feet high in some place on the sides of the road.  

The water at Devil's Lake was crystal clear and frigid..  

But the kids still splashed around in it.

Elk lake, which is a favorite for many during the summer months for concerts, camping and swimming, was stunning!

What a bad ass truck!!

Lava Lake was also very beautiful...

A few weeks later we ventured back up to the lakes to see how things were progressing.. Devils lake was completely void of snow and was the most beautiful clear, green color I have ever seen!!!

Probably still a little chilly to swim in, but again the kids were loving it.

Finally at Elk lake we found a little swim hole that was pretty warm.  The kids had fun finding garter snakes and tadpoles.

warming up...

On our way home we saw a huge "cloud" in the sky.. which turned out to be a plume of smoke!

As we drove toward Bend, the smoke seemed to get closer and closer.. great...

Well as it turns out Bend isn't perfect after all. It might not have tornadoes or hurricanes or flooding of any sort, but it does have its share of fire.  The fire was only 6 miles from town which put us on alert to be ready to evacuate.  When it came down to figuring out what we should take with us, we realized there's not much "stuff" that's too important to us.  We need very little to survive and that most of what we have is just "stuff" and doesn't hold value.  It was a nice lesson learned.

As for the fire, the firemen worked day and night for days to get this beast of a fire under control.  I have so much gratitude for these men and women who fought so hard to keep us safe.  I feel honored to have them as our firefighters.

After the smoke cleared we ventured out to another road that closes during the winter.  A road that leads to the beautiful view of Paulina Lake. It was just gorgeous up here.  The lake again was a deep blue/green surrounded by green pines and snow patches dispersed throughout.  

Family photo op

We headed back down the treacherous one lane road that should be mentioned on the show, The World's Most Dangerous Roads and was glad to be going down hugging the inside of the road and not the cliff side!  Pretty scary!!