ErinChris Photo Blog: Traveling the Pacific Northwest: Napa and Crater Lake

Our next leg of the trip involved driving from San Francisco to Napa and then up to Oregon to see Crater Lake National Park. It was our first of three 6-hour driving days. I guess that's what you get when you take a "road trip". Once we got to the Napa area we headed straight for the winery that we had signed up to tour. I was only able to take a few photos out the car window before we arrived and ran in to meet up with the tour group.

After driving the Silverado Trail, this sums up what most of the area looks like this time of year.

The tour we took was at the Frog's Leap Winery in Rutherford. The owner took part in one of the wine competitions that put California on the map when it did so well against the better known French wines. They are known for all the organically grown grapes and for their "green" approach to running their winery. Here are a few photos from our tour of the grounds and the barn.

After leaving Napa we made our way through Northern California on our way to Oregon. For most of our drive through Northern California, the roadsides were filled with golden fields.

We also saw a mountain that I'd never heard of, Mount Shasta. After living in Florida for so long, snow capped mountains are such a nice change of pace.

Once we made it to Oregon, we headed on to Crater Lake National Park. The day we visited Crater Lake was the worst weather we encountered on our trip. The problem was that it was a cloudy day, and when you're at 8,000 ft you are IN the clouds. The first time we took the 33 mile loop around the lake we weren't able to see much.

We decided to wait in the visitor's center for a couple hours for the fog to mostly blow over before we headed out on the loop again. The second time was much better and we stopped at a number of view points and could see all the way across the gorgeous lake.