We woke up to the fresh sunshine in the morning. Matteo had brought some yogurt – which seemed quite unusual for a camping trip. But in breakfast, with hot tea, cookies and cereal bars, they were awesome. I am seriously planning to take some yogurt in my next camping trip.
So, after the wonderful breakfast, we packed the tents and started for our today’s destination: Newberry National Volcanic Monument. As we were passing through the Crater Lake for the last time, Matteo and me seized the opportunity to take a few last snaps f the crater lake in the bright morning sunlight. Dipu and Vishal were, by that time, tired of the incessant photography by me and Matteo and hence they did not come out of the car. It was a moderately long drive. Our plan was to camp beside Paulina lake and then do a few hikes nearby. On a personal note, the name Paulina reminds me of a girl whom I knew, or more preciously, some of my friends knew, while I was doing an internship in Sophia-Antipolis, France in the summer of 2001 but that is a different story.

On our way to Newberry, we crossed the big Deschutes National Forest. Most of the time, the highway (and very few passing cars) was (were) the only sign of human habitation for miles. We also crossed a few towns with only a few buildings. I wonder how many people live in there. On our way, we had pizza for lunch at one place. The town (or whatever you may want to call it) was extremely desolate. Few gas stations, few shops and very little activity around. I could hardly see anybody, except few passing cars down the freeway. In the pizza place, one extremely sweet but melancholic girl was managing everything from taking our orders to baking the pizza. I felt genuinely sad for her. That was not a very happy place to work for.
We reached Paulina lake slightly after 1:00p. We set up our tent there, it was a beautiful place. After that, we went to see the Big Obsidian Flow

The Big Obsidian Flow is 1300 years old and is the youngest lava flow in Oregon. A one-mile interpretive trail climbs up and onto this impressive lava flow of obsidian (black glass) and pumice. Along the trail there are seven interpretive signs which discuss the geology, biology, history, and archaeology of the Big Obsidian Flow.

It was great. I haven’t seen anything like this before. I will post some pictures later when I get some good bandwidth. I took very small pieces of these wonderful obsidian rocks with me while coming back – even though I knew I was not supposed to do so. But I could not resist myself. It was a simple one mile hike – but my stupid knee started to hurt again.

From there, we went to see the Paulina Creek Falls. It was nice as usual. These days I am visiting way too many water falls.

Paulina Creek Falls is located just west of Paulina Lake outside Newberry Crater. This double falls drops 60 feet onto the jumble of rocks below.

One more hike that we could have done is the hike to Paulina Peak – the highest point in Newberry area. But somehow Dipu and Vishal were not in a mood for hiking – and my leg was hurting to. So I was kind of glad that they did not go. We decided to go check out the bbq-party that was going on in a nearby restaurant beside the lake. It was their annual Labor day custom to throw a BBQ/Party. The interesting point was that they have been slow roasting a pig in a pit for more than 24 hours. That must have been delicious. But I don’t like pork that much. Neither does Dipu and Vishal is a semi-veg. So, Matteo is the only one who ventured to have dinner there – and I could say he liked it. We rented a boat and was on the lake for two hours – till it suddenly become very cold. I would say that the boating was the high point of the day.
After that, we came back to the campground, and three of us cooked some food for ourselves as Mattoe had already eaten. We had hot tomato soup, some noodles and some hot dogs. It felt really good and filling. After that, it was campfire + marshmallows + wine time. It was getting really cold – primarily because the elevation and the fact that we were beside the lake. So, we doused the fire and went to bed quickly.

I have been postponing this post for a long time – primarily because I was waiting for the opportunity to upload the photographs first. It seems that I cannot do that before I reach SD. So…here it goes without the photos.

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