Reaching Lifelong Goals

My fall term begins on Monday the 28th.   My wife decided that I deserved at least one last fling before hitting the books again.   We are both very interested in photography (I blog about that too…here) so a couple of days of photo travel in Oregon were planned.   Just like in 4th grade….”what I did on my summer vacation” comes to mind.   With a full load of classes during Summer Term, there was not much “summer” left.   We spent Monday and Tuesday in Southern Oregon visiting a couple of sites we have neglected over the years.   On Monday, we drove about 2 hours South of our home in the Willamette Valley to Roseburg, Oregon…   In a small town near there is a Wildlife Safari Park.   I have not been there for over 25 years, when they had first opened.   It was quite hot  and most of the animals were resting.   I did get some fantastic photos though, still going through the RAW images in Lightroom. The Wildlife Safari Park has one of the premier Cheetah breeding programs in the USA.   The big cats were quite active, but behind chain link fences (not great for photography)    When entering the Brown Bear enclosure, we saw two huge males having either fun or a big disagreement.   All in all, the Safari trip was a success and we had a very enjoyable day.   Back to the hotel for the evening and up early the next morning for a trip East into the mountains to visit Crater Lake National Park.   A very scenic drive up into the mountains along the Umpqua River which has some very nice rapids and wonderful vistas.   One detour that proved to be very photogenic was Clearwater Falls, which was a short hike into the forest. This waterfall was beautiful and we spent about an hour there.   I did some experimenting with shutter speeds and the waterfall.   Pleased with the results (still have some post processing to do…)

The High point of the whole trip was spending the day at Crater Lake.    This is one of the most beautiful spots on the North American continent.   Crater Lake is located in Southern Oregon on the crest of the Cascade Mountain range, 100 miles (160 km) east of the Pacific Ocean. It lies inside a caldera, or volcanic basin, created when the 12,000 foot (3,660 meter) high Mount Mazama collapsed 7,700 years ago following a large eruption.  Pictures are hard pressed to do this wonder justice.  After a wonderful lunch at the historic Crater Lake Lodge, we continued around the rim of the lake stopping and enjoying the beauty.   The lake is about 5 miles across and a drive around the rim takes a couple of hours (including stops for photos)  I could not have asked for a more perfect end to this summer, 500 digital photos on my computer, and just a couple of more days to get them processed before hitting the books again!!!    I have a full load of classes scheduled for Fall Term.   It is now time to turn my brain back on for the coming school year.  I am one excited Non Trad, I’ll be finishing up my Math requirements  and diving full force into my upper level classes as a History Major at Oregon State University starting Winter Term.     Sorry for the diversion from my Non Traditional Student faire, but this special couple of days was too wonderful not to share with my readers.   Tomorrow, we’ll be back on the college life track again.    Thanks for spending some quality time here with me.