The Long and Winding Road

Although I slept very well Sunday night, I woke up cold, which is unusual since we had the heat turned on. Bill noticed the lights blinking on the refrigerator…uh oh…we had run out of propane. Dismayed at not being able to heat the water for my coffee, I became even more dismayed when Bill pointed out we had $100 worth of salmon in the freezer! Up we both jumped, and within minutes we were on the road headed for the nearest town…which wasn’t that “near”. It took us about a half an hour to reach Gold Beach, where we had to pay a premium price for propane. The town was pretty dead, so we decided to travel to the next place on the map, Agness, OR, to get some coffee and breakfast. The road to Agness was a very long, narrow and winding one. On the right of the road was a steep wall of rock and dirt, and over the left edge was a very deep river gorge. There were no guard rails, and at many spots only room for one vehicle. Fortunately, I was in a pre-coffee comatose state, so I took it all in stride. Later, looking up Agness, OR, to find out why on earth people would go there, I came across this sentence on Wikipedia:

“Agness has a K–6 "one-room school", which actually consists of two rooms. It is kept open by the  Central Curry School District because of its "geographical remoteness": approximately 30 miles from Gold Beach up a "winding and sometimes dangerous" road. This road has been the site of several incidents that have resulted in the deaths of travelers.”

As we entered the “town”, a sign greeted us that said, “Welcome to Agness. Population-Small”. The only thing we found in town was a tiny post office and a small store, which did not serve coffee. We decided to make our own right there in the parking lot, where we discovered that the propane that we had just filled was not working. Thank goodness we found out then! Bill fixed it with a few clicks of some switch, and with coffees in hand, we took the only way out of Agness, back down that long and winding…and dangerous...road. Fortunately, everything in our freezer remained frozen…and we did not fall to our deaths.

Life got much better that day, as we entered beautiful Crater Lake National Park. At a depth of 1,943’, Crater Lake is the deepest lake in the United States. Fed by rain and snow (but no rivers or streams), the lake is considered to be the cleanest large body of water in the world.

The lake rests inside a caldera that was formed approximately 7,700 years ago when a volcano collapsed following a major eruption. Bill and I did not take the one hike that allows access to the water, but we took a few others that afforded us amazing views of Crater Lake.

We are now making our way through Nevada, enroute to Salt Lake City. From there, Delta Airlines will take me home on Monday. Lots more to see before that happens, though!