As we begin our journey north on Hwy 395 I can't help but notice the beauty of the Sierra Nevadas popping up from the desert. The colors are spectacular.

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We felt right at home in Bishop since our campsite backed up to the local golf course.

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Mono Lake and her tufas are always fun to see. Although we didn't stop for an up close and personal visit this time, we were able to reminisce about our last visit here.

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The West Walker River is a tributary of the Walker River and is approximately 95 miles long. Its waters are diverted along its upper course to form Topaz Lake at the California-Nevada border. The river is heavily used for irrigation in the West Walker River Valley.

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As you know, we like to go on the road less traveled so when we took a short cut along a country road we were treated to a view of this wonderful barn.

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Junipers Reservoir RV Park is kind of out in the middle of nowhere, with a very picturesque setting. The area where this working water pump is located overlooks 175 acre Junipers Reservoir. During our short stay here, we saw pronghorn, a bald eagle, marmots, ground squirrels, rabbits and a variety of birds.

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There are bird boxes on poles at every campsite. Since it's early in the year, we get to watch the swallows feeding their young out our bedroom window.

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It cools down nicely at night making it perfect for Al to get in some outdoor uke time.

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The RV park was built some 30 years ago by the original owners of 8000 acre KV Bar Ranch because they wanted to share the beauty of this peaceful place with others. We knew there were some 1000 cattle in the ranch herd but were we ever surprised to look up at the field outside our front window and see these beasts running in front of us as they were herded to a fresh field.

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Our neighbor told us about Cottonwood Lake so we decided to take a short drive to find it.

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Cottonwood Lake, located in a large ponderosa pine and aspen forest setting, is a small artificial lake created by the Forest Service in 1961.

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It was fun watching these two little squirrels scurrying around. Once I got my camera ready, they seemed to stop playing and pose for me. How cute is that!

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Mt. Thielsen, at 9182-feet, seems to be standing guard over Diamond Lake. Because of the natural lightning rod on top, we were told that it gets more lightning strikes then anything else in this area. Diamond Lake is a natural body of water and at 52-feet is fairly shallow for these parts. We got here early enough today that we were able to do the 12-mile drive around the lake.

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A massive volcanic eruption 7,700 years ago left this deep caldera in the place where Mt. Mazama once stood. Centuries of rain and snow filled the basin forming a deep blue lake whose waters are of unmatched color and clarity. At 1,943-feet, Crater Lake is the deepest lake in the United States.

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Wizard Island is a cinder cone that rises some 760-feet above the lake's surface. According to legend, the spirit Llao was thrown into the lake by an enemy spirit and monsters devoured all except the head which was left to form the island.

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Wildflowers abound here in Southern Oregon. Some we can easily identify like the lupines and indian paintbrush but others, like this salmon colored one, are new to us.

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Pumice Castle formed when pumice and other lava welded together at high temperatures. A hardened base has kept Pumice Castle intact as softer materials have eroded away.

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At first glance, this jagged island calls to mind the image of a ghostly ship with tall masts and drooping sails. These rocky spires remained after Mazama's massive eruption and collapse and are the oldest rocks in the Crater Lake Basin at over 400,000-years old.

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Vidae Falls is a cascading waterfall that is the result of a spring fed creek tumbling over a glacier carved cliff and dropping 100-feet over a series of ledges.

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The area around Diamond Lake has many waterfalls so we chose three and headed out to see what we could find. Whitehorse Falls, a punchbowl type waterfall, is beneath a sheltering canopy of an old growth Douglas fir forest. The Clearwater River falls some 15-feet into a tranquil pool at its base.

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Along the way we saw a turn off for Stump Lake and decided we should explore it. We found this nice little lake making our little side trip worthwhile.

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Clearwater Falls is a segmented waterfall formed as the Clearwater River cascades 30-feet over moss covered rocks and logs. We were heading for our third waterfall but were turned around by the forest service because of a forest fire that was raging in the area. Maybe we'll see Warm Springs Falls another time.

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