Snowed in!, being tricky, snow socks, an adventure, amazing scenery, around Crater lake, TacoBel McD BurgerKing meals, finally in California, cold beach [Sat 9]

When we got up in the morning there was a 1+ foot of snow in the ground, we had been snowed in! Our car was completely covered in the white powder and it seemed unlikely we'd be able to leave town that day because roads were crazy slippery.

Fortunately the gang was useful, we used towels to clean the car, and the underseat carpets as traction devices under the tires to get the car out of the parking lot. The roads were still quite slippery so we bought snow tire socks at a gas station, As(y) and I am confident we got ripped off but that wasn't a big worry because we'd have been stuck in snow without it.

We got stuck on a traffic jam on the way, discovered we'd lost one of our tire socks, drove back over because they were sixty fucking bucks, found them, recovered them through a very dangerous move we shouldn't have done at all and got back to our drive.

Loved the various ecosystems on our way to Crater lake, desert-like, grasslands, forests, snowed areas, snowless areas, what a diverse area that part of the country is!

Made it to Crater Lake finally, only to discover the road there was snowed-in. Waited a bit there, and made our way to Diamond lake instead before discovering we were almost out of gas. Gassed up by going up and decided to drive to Diamond lake scenic overview, which we discovered was snowed in as well. Figured might as well go to the final entrance or Crater Lake because we'd put in so much effort and we made it, after 25 bucks and a very intense drive we were on the top of the crater. It was very cold and snowy and windy, we were very much not prepared for it, Ar(e) didn't have a good time. The rest of the group found it mindboggling, we talked about the history of the place and took a few dozen photos. No way to hike down but who can do that.

Had meals at TacoBell in Madras, and McD.

Reached California finally at 9.30 in the evening, Crescent CA after As(m) drove us through the dark squiggly way. Chilled at the cold and honestly not exciting beach, ate impossible burger (everybody had impossible burger) at Burger King, and got a room at Motel 6, my first time in a motel. It wasn't bad at all, I could live with that.

I slept on the floor in my sleeping bag because I'd rather have done that than sleep in the unclean bed and also there wasn't enough space, fell asleep to the sound of Seinfeld playing.