Sunshine, Alright!

(Monday, September 23). The sun rose in a cloudless sky over the deep, deep blue waters of Crater Lake early this morning. But within two hours, clouds moved in threatening to shroud the lake with overcast as happened yesterday. Luckily for us and the rest of the tourists in the park, the clouds were soon blown away from the lake by a light breeze and sunshine bounced off all of the mountains and forests for the remainder of the day.
We began our day of touring at the Sinnott Memorial overlook perched on a rock ledge 50 five below the rim of the caldera. Most of the prominent features of the caldera are visible from this spot, and a small indoor museum has excellent exhibits explaining how Crater Lake came to be, and how scientists are now studying the lake environment.
Just before noon we picked up lunch goodies at the snack bar, climbed into the CR-V, and spent the next five hours circumnavigating the lake in our land yacht. (The rim road is 33 miles long; you could probably drive it in under two hours if you didn't dwaddle to look at the scenery).
One of our first stops was at the parking lot for the trailhead to "The Watchman", an 8,056' peak on the west side of the caldera. A breathtaking (literally and figuratively) hike of less than a mile brings you to the fire lookout tower at the top and 360 degree views of the lake, the park, and the surrounding mountains.
A young Chinese woman was busily snapping photos of her companions from atop the fire lookout. She would count ("One, Two, Three") in Chinese, than snap the picture. She offered (in English) to take Dick's picture and almost fell off the tower when he thanked her in Chinese (which he learned 40 years ago at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey).
Although a fairly constant stream of visitors pulled in and out of the viewpoints along the lake's rim drive, we found a secluded picnic spot and had it all to ourselves.
Our driving guidebook to the park said that if we stopped above Steel Bay (named after William Gladstone Steel who spearheaded efforts to make Crater Lake a National Park), we would be "besieged" by chipmunks and ground squirrels looking for a handout. The little buggers appeared on cue and were mightily disappointed that they got no handouts from us. (If they store human snack food with the nuts and seeds they've gathered, their entire food supply can rot, leaving them to die of starvation during the long winter). Dick finally got a few of them to hold still long enough for him to snap some pictures before we continued our drive around the lake.
Two large forest fires are burning to the north and south of the park and one small 20-acre fire is smoldering away within easy view of the rim drive. The fellow manning The Watchman lookout told us that the largest of these fires may continue until November or December and will not be completely extinguished until copious snowfall finally snuffs them out.
We finished the day as we had on Sunday with the short, but steep hike up the Sun Notch to the rim of the crater. Yesterday, the rim was socked in with clouds, but today it was bright and sunny, with just a little haze in spots from smoke that had blown in from the fire was of the rim.
Tomorrow we'll drive across the Klamath Basin, re-enter California, and make our way to McCloud for the evening.