An Unexpected Turn Of Events

We are driving the car to Mazama Village in Crater Lake to pick up some beer. The road softly bends down 2000 feet in elevation. Pines are growing over mountains as far as you can see, and as we come to the middle of the descent we see Crater Lake, a vast blueness, peak at us from behind a wall of rock. We continue down into the trees, making a left at the Visitor's Center a left into the village, parking before the store.

$5.88 later, we have 6 bottles of Bud Light and we are traveling back up 2000 feet to the top of a mountain. We find a turnout where we can see the lake and park up next to a battered 90's Jeep with a Virginia license plate. We pop open two bottles and walk outside where the owner of the jeep, a man in his thirties wearing battered clothes and 80s sunglasses asks me, "you smoke herb?" I say, "well yeah, why?"

He looks at his companion, a girl who looks like a 20ish hippie, then looks back at me. "Because Budwiser is one of the leading companies fighting weed growers in the States."

"I didn't know that. We just went with it cuz it was the cheapest beer they had but we'll have to go with something else now."

"Best to spend more."

I nod my head and look at the license plate, "Definitely, so how long did it take you to drive from Virginia?"

He stands on a rock and looks at the lake for a long moment, "Well, I've been traveling for about 14 years now."

"Really? We just started about a week ago, we've got about 6 months to go around the country. Is there someplace we should see?"

"Well. . . . there are places. . . . do you know you're about 10 minutes away from some of the greatest hot springs in the country?"

"No, where are they?"

"See here, you take the road North out of Crater lake and follow it round to Tokatee Falls" I scramble for some paper, "Don't worry, you'll remember; you go to the sign for Tokatee Falls and follow the road up. You take a left at the first fork and a right at the second fork past the power plant. The springs are called Ump. . . awe, Im getting too detailed, just remember Tokatee Falls, left then right. Then you drive up the dirt road, you'll see a parking lot, don't park there; thats where They want you to park and hike three miles up to the springs. Just keep going and you'll come to another parking lot, from there it's less than a mile to the springs. Park there, and there's free camping on the river. If you can't find the way up just ask the hippies, they'll tell you which way to go."

"There are hippies, awesome!"

"Half awesome, half not. Oh and if you get up to Montana go to Whitefish."

A couple gets out of their car and he continues, "whitefish is a tight spot."

The guy who got out of the car says "I'm from Whitefish!"

The traveling man says, "Well good, he can tell you about Whitefish, we've gotta get down to Yosemite tonight."

As he drives away he says from his car, "It takes more than 6 months to see it all."