Donaldson Crew Adventures

We go camping on Paulina lake often in the summer. I have never been up in the winter. The resort on Paulina lake is actually open for a few months in the winter but you cannot drive in - hike or snowmobile only from a snow park that is a few miles down the road. 

Noah and I drove up Friday afternoon and hiked in staying at one of the small 2 person cabins for the night. 

On the way in we stopped and hiked down to Paulina falls. Again - a place we have visited in summer but not in winter.  Really pretty.

We did a fun early summer Sunday family hike with the Lovejoy's to the Paulina lake hot springs.

We had such a great time last year camping a Little Crater Campground, on Paulina Lake in Newberry Crater south of Bend that we decided to go with the same place again this year.    Unfortunately Abbie was a little under the weather this year recovering from Pneumonia, but we made the best of it.  Some friends from Church - Pete and Dara came up Saturday for dinner which was really fun.

 Around Camp

Today we headed up to Newberry Crater for the day.  On the way up we stopped at Paulina falls and then went on to East Lake where we rented a pontoon boat.  Lots of fun toodling around the lake.  The kids took turns driving.  PJ loved doing 'donuts' in the boat.  

We decided to get out of smokey Bend for the day and head up to East Lake. We have had so many fires in Oregon the last couple of weeks that the blue sky was something we have missed. We went up to the lake with our friends the Bercots. We had a fun day and didn't return home until bed time.

I thought I might to try and drive 'up' to get out of the smoke. I drove up to Newberry Crater south of Bend. I was smoky as I drove up but broke out of the smoke just as I neared the top and had great blue sky!

I did and 8 mile hike around the perimeter of Paulina Lake (1 of 2 lakes in the crater). It was great to get out after being cooped up in the house this whole week.

The pictures of me in the water are natural hot spring along the shore of the lake.  

Kelly and Abbie went down to California this weekend for Erin's baby shower.  Thursday was also the last day of school,  so I took Friday off and we did a boys camping trip to East Lake in Newberry Crater.  We stayed at Cinder Hill Campground on the east side of East Lake.  The weather was beautiful and warm during the day (around 70) for this time of year.  Evenings were still cold for sleeping though so staying warm in the sleeping bag was important!

Here is some shots our campsite after setup, the beach as well as cooking hot dogs over the fire for dinner.