Well that wasn't quite what we planned....

Finally got my arse in gear and we headed on out for breakfast in Bend. Dan had found a place called 'The Breakfast Club' that looked good so we headed there.
It was tremendous!
Lovely little diner type place (just like in the movies/series and right down to the type of menu material!) with a really friendly lady serving us. Endless supplies of coffee and really scrumptious food!
We were well set for the day so off we set.
Stopped on the way for some water and a break and was greeted by a man in his pyjamas getting coffee. Its bloody catching..!
As we left there I said to Dan that I seriously hope i don't regret not filling up there...  But we had over half a tank so it was OK.. My view is that if I am getting to around 100miles of fuel left then we need to start looking. There should always be somewhere with in a 100mile radius...
We followed the route to Crater Lake on the Sat Nav but as we were turning off I did see an actual sign on the road saying we should take a different highway.. But like the wise old things we are we said the Sat Nav was fine and would be taking us the quickest route..
It took us a very weird route which made us follow a road then turn around and come back the way we had come. We were a tad confused but then realised that we obviously couldn't have got in the entrance from the side of the road we were on.. it was one of those situations.

NO.. it was one of those situations where the entrance is closed because there is still about 4 foot of bloody snow blocking the route!  Ahhhh shit, bollocks and crap.
Ahh well, it was a chance we took to be fair and I had always known that we may struggle with the odd place that was up high as it is still early season.
After sitting there for 5 minutes staring at the snow block we agree that we might as well just head straight on to Ashland now. So we turned and set off.. on a very long, forest surrounded route with approx 120 miles of fuel left. And according to the Sat Nav, the next main junction/area was 79 miles away. So, hmm, do-able but taking me to the edge of my stress levels for sure. Now at home I drive around on fresh air all the time something that freaks Dan out as he won't let it drop below about 3/4 full! But  at home, I don't drive in areas of VAST forest land with no signs of life let along 'gas'..!
I had seen that the Sat Nav will tell you if there are gas stations if you programme it. Could we find that bloody setting..? of course not.
Then Dan found he needed a 'restbreak' pretty urgently so he was getting stressed now but there was absolutely zero in sight. Find the rest area probably find the gas stations too...
Pulled over in the end and whilst he was 'resting' I managed to sort out how to get the Sat Nav to tell us where fuel stations were. Felt a bit better then..
Dan then proceeded to look up about Crater Lake and found that the South Entrance was always open. We had gone to the North.. duhhhhhhhh!  Bad research there Sarah.....
Anyway, we happened to pass that route to the South Entrance on what was now our route to Ashland but it said it was a further 23 miles away and we now had only 80miles of fuel left (so I should have filled up at that other petrol station.. idiot!)  no bloody way was I taking that risk. I knew there would be no fuel stations up there so we had to drive past. Thankfully we saw a sign for a little place called Prospect that had fuel stations and was 11miles away. WooHoooooo we're saved. We won't run out of fuel on the side of the road in the middle of this human-less mahooosive forest!

Prospect was a interesting little town to say the least. It was like an enclosed community really in the way it was set up but I don't think it actually is. Found the one pump stations and I so wanted someone with a white beard, dungarees, red check shirt and straw hat to come out to serve us!  Think I have got Toy Story 3 stuck in my head there....(get it???).
The guy that came out was lovely, filled us up and then came back to tell me that my credit card wouldn't work.   He did say that his machine could be flaky but did we have another. I gave him my debit card and followed him in.. Didn't work again..(Gas was $40 btw and we had about $28 cash between us <gulp>).. shiiiittt..  Thankfully he tried again and it worked. Phew.. I didn't have to leave all my belongings behind whilst I went to find cash...
Anyway I had a good chat with him about Crater Lake and told him what had happened. He said that the entrance we had passed 11 miles back would be fine but it would mean a 35mile drive back to have to come back those same 35miles to carry on to Ashland. I asked him if it was worth it as I had really wanted to see this place... long story short, the way the weather was he said we wouldn't really get the benefit of the place and might not even be able to see much but had it been a brighter day then absolutely you go back there as it is stunning...

Got back in the car still unsure what to do as at the end of the day this is a road trip so driving has to happen.. until Dan told me that I had a text from my credit card company  - they had declined the card at the petrol station as they thought it was being used fraudulently -  there were 2 payments on there that even I didn't recognise - and had now frozen it until I told them it was OK!!  Yeah, that is what I bloody need right now.
Right that's it, we're heading to Ashland now so I can get the card sorted and just give up this driving malarkey for the day. Clearly this was not meant to be. I could not have settled whilst I thought my card had been cloned AGAIN and just needed to get somewhere on data to look into it.
FUCK!  Well at least we had a full tank again ;-).
Partway back it all clicked with me what the other payments were and I was able to respond and un-freeze my card. PHEWWEEEEEEEEE! But that was too late for Crater lake.. I reassured myself with what Prospect Pete had said about the weather plus it was even cloudier and actually raining now and just looked forward to seeing another new town.....