Welcome to Chaos !!

Have you ever been to Crater Lake? If not you should plan a trip to see this breathtakingly beautiful place. Crater Lake had many names, the Klamath tribe of Native Americans named it Giiwaas (some write Giiwas) which means spiritual place and they still regard it a spiritual site which I can totally understand.
I went there last week and I want to go back and explore it some more. Go hiking more, perhaps spend the night. There are different options if you want to spend the night at Crater Lake.





Chhaya came with.





One of the trails takes you down to the lake. I highly recommend walking down to the lake, it is not that difficult at all. People swim down there (so bring something to wear if you want to take a dip) and you get a completely different view of the area. The water was not that cold although I only dipped my feet into it. The lake is amazingly blue, clear and deep. Deepest lake in the United States.











A spirit.



A beautiful day came to an end....I love this place. I have to come back. I am extremely grateful for the places I have been to. Nature is wonderful.

So many hikes to go on and so many waterfalls to see....yesterday I went to Salt Creek Falls. 286 feet, not the tallest waterfall in Oregon though. That title belongs to Multnomah Falls and I haven't see that one....yet.
But first some fruit and water for the trip. I like this mineral water, it is called Gerolsteiner and is bottled in Germany.



Salt Creek Falls is located not too far from Willamette Pass off Highway 58.



Chhaya and Senna came with of course. Here is Chhaya.







And here is Senna.



Me and Senna tried to hike down to the base off the waterfall and we got close but the last 100 feet are damaged due to a rock slide so I decided to turn around since I suspect I would had slid on my behind all the way down had I attempted to go any further......maybe another time. If you have a couple of walking sticks with you going down should not be a problem.



Pretty colors painted the sky on the drive home.

The full moon is out tonight.....this month it is called the Strawberry Moon. I wanted a good look at it so me and Chhaya drove out to Dee Wright Observatory. But....it was too cloudy this evening. I did not get to see a colorful sunset and the moon peeked out when rising, then quickly went into hiding behind the clouds. I did get a good look at it on the drive home though.

There is a food cart here in Bend that I have been to a few times now and while writing this I am thinking about the delicious food I've tasted from there and I can't wait to go back.
Super healthy too.....organic and vegetarian.
I've had a quinoa salad with bananas and nuts and a plate of plantains sprinkled with berries I've never tasted before. By the way....I LOVE plantains.



I tried the sweet potato noodles loaded with yummy veggies and the salad wraps with a dipping sauce and a smoothie called Strawberry Sunset.



Today I had one of the yummiest smoothies I have ever tried, it was called Blueberry Muffin.
I think that I will go back for that tomorrow.



Thank You Carlie for feeding me some of the best food I've ever had.
This food is DEFINITELY made with real L❤️VE.

The McKenzie Highway (OR 242) opened up a few days ago, parts of it is closed for the winter. It was a rainy day but as we say in Sweden, "det finns inget dåligt väder, bara dåliga kläder", so we decided to go anyways. It was actually pretty cool because not only was it raining cats and dogs it was also thundering and lightning. And I love thunderstorms. Saw some impressive flashes of lightning that were very close.
Here are the gates that opened up on June 19 to allow access through the McKenzie Highway.





The very impressive lava fields, a large area of black lava rock.



Traveling companion.





This is a very scenic area.....lots to see and explore.
The heavy rain caused a mud slide and a car got stuck.



And speaking of Volvo.....besides being a Swedish company originally (not sure if Volvo is now owned by a Chinese company?) anyhow...the word volvo is conjugated from a latin word, volvere and means "I roll". Back in the day when I used to go to a lot of raves you would see people wearing t-shirts at raves with VOLVO printed on them.

A couple of days ago while driving a dog ran past the car. I was waiting at a stop sign about to get on the freeway when that happened. I got out of the car and called the dog but she didn't stop and continued towards the freeway. I got really worried that she would run out on the freeway and get hit by a car so I followed her, passed her up and stopped at the next exit ramp. The dog ran on the sidewalk next to the freeway and I was hoping she would continue on the path, coming towards me which she did. When I saw her approaching in the mirror I got out of the car with Chhaya's leash in hand, crouched down and called for her to come to me. She hesitated for a second but then she came to me and I secured her. Other cars slowed down and one girl rolled down the window asking if I needed help but at that point I felt that we (me & my company) had the situation under control. I always travel with a spare leash and a bowl for water and offered her water that she lapped up. She was scared and tired but she waited patiently next to me. Thankfully she had a tag on her collar with some numbers and we managed to get a hold of the pet sitter.....So the dog's owner was out of town and had hired a pet sitter through a rather well known pet sitting company, I guess the dog ran outside when the front door was opened. It took about 30 minutes and the pet sitter, a very frazzled lady arrived. She was so relieved that the dog was safe and I was relieved that nothing bad happened to the dog. Hugs were exchanged and the dog was taken back home.



Then I found out that Winnie (the dog's name) was rescued from South Korea! Here is part of the text message that I got from Winnie's owner.
"Thank you so very much for calling the Humane Society about Winnie and also capturing her. I'm so happy she came to you. Winnie means a ton to me. She's one of the pups from South Korea. I've had her since she was 4 months old. She's a wonderful dog. Again I thank you so much."
WOW! It made me emotional thinking that Winnie was going to get slaughtered for meat. I am so happy that we happened to be at the right place at the right time. There was no question when we spotted the dog running loose - we were going to do what we could to capture her.
And speaking of meat.....yes it is awful that dogs are consumed as food in some countries and also treated horrible while waiting for slaughter. But other animals are also slaughtered for their meat and treated badly. Plus used to entertain us.....circus animals and animal parks. Being kind to animals is the right thing to do and not eating meat is what's right for me.