The weather forecast for northern Oregon and southern Washington called for some heavy rain so we decided to head a bit south for our next camping instalment. We knew we couldn't avoid the rain completely but were hopeful to at least experience some sunshine.  Detroit Lake State recreation area is a man-made lake created in 1953 by the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers and is located in the Cascade Mountains.  In the summer the lake has 400ft depths, is 9 miles long with over 32 miles of shoreline.  Once again we arrived in darkness so had to wait till the next morning to see this beautiful park.

It rained for most of the first night so the top was down, above are some shots of our site. While waiting for the sun to arrive, it was time to go exploring! I discovered that they lower the lake level in September to compensate for the extra rain in the fall/winter. It was an eerie site to walk on what is normally the lake bottom with 60 year old tree stumps looking as tho they had just been cut down

Here are some more shots we took while exploring the area

Another cool close up shot of some stagnant water

Of course the sun did make a few appearances and we were able to lift the top for a while

We will definitely be visiting this park again next summer as we soon realized that boating and water activities are the major attractions when the lake is at a higher level. Only one of the camping loops were open in November and there were only two other campers which made for a peaceful weekend of fun.

We are planning a big camping trip next week to San Jose so we performed some basic upgrades in anticipation of the 1,500 mile round trip. Here are some shots of our new headlights and brand new Hankook RA08 tires. Stay tuned for more updates when we get back!