Kerry and Kelli's Big Adventure - Day 2

Today's the day! Hip Hip Hooray! It's Thursday!
The day I meet Karen!

But first we have to stop at Trader Joe's, I need my Dark Chocolate Caramel and Black Sea salt bar! Kerry got some chocolate covered potato chips. I should mention that we may have stopped at one or two other Trader Joe's along the way to buy both items again. And again. Oh, and we bought wraps there. More than once.

We hit the road before the sun came up. So much for finding hotels with breakfast included, we were up before any of them served breakfast. 

We had planned on doing some sight seeing and other things in Bend, but then we worried we wouldn't get to Crater Lake and everyone said we had to see it. So we scratched everything off our list of things to do for Thursday! And it was worth it. I may or may not have had tears in my eyes when I saw how beautiful Crater Lake was. And then I bought an awesome Crater Lake shirt shirt! And a few other souvenirs for the family. 

We were a bit early to Jacksonville so we stopped in Medford and did a bit of shopping. Went to Harbor Freight and got a spinner rack for my crafty crap. To this day, it's assembled, that took a lot of patience, and it's sitting empty. I also made Kerry stop at Old Navy. It was 100 degrees, I didn't have enough hot weather clothes. 

I worried about meeting Karen. She's not my idol, but I've loved everything she's ever done. I have some of her transparencies from a million years ago when she designed scrapbooking products, I am hoarding them. I should have gotten her to sign them! Anyway, I worried meeting her might some how make her less likeable, maybe there was a quality about her that I would find appalling in person. NOT LIKELY! She's even better in person. 

She had cute things like these ....

And her cute momma helping out. And her dad and step-mom were there too. Such a great, welcoming family! 

That's Anna, it was her birthday! She got to have her cake and eat it too!

 Karen found these cute bottles of pop and wasn't sure where they were from. CANADA! Although, I can't remember seeing them in bottles like that lately. I think I saw cans. 

Cuteness! Remember these photos are all taken before she taught us how to take better photos! I want lights like that for the back yard, instead of the ones hidden in the bushes that I have now. Or maybe I don't have, I can't tell anymore!

We had fun. But boy, did we work. She said she was a task master. And she was but it was okay, because I felt I learned so much. I thought I'd have time to read, so I loaded my Kobo up with books, paid for book, not just library books. I only touched that thing to move it so I could stuff other things in around it. 

 Karen made us leave our comfort zones. She made us shoot Manual! And learn Lightroom! We took turns and at any given time at least 2 people were shooting. I shot this at night! In a house, when it was dark out! I think that's someone shooting from under a chair, or passed out under a chair. That's Kili, she's smiling, and I'm sure she's thinking "Holy Cats! My roommates are freakin' awesome! Later, I will regret telling them about my least favorite word!"

 And then I think I went to bed before 1 am. That was the earliest night we had.

P.S.
I forgot about Kerry. I was so excited about Karen!
He left me at the house, and drove to Yreka, not pronounced Eureka, that's a different place. This is Why Recka. Or Reeka.
He stayed there and drove back to Ashland to mountain bike where it was even hotter! He ate an expensive sandwich from the co-op, had beer, rode a long ways, met some people, one named Shaggy. And didn't have great wifi, or wifi at all. Which was one of the things that made us pick the hotels we picked! It was the same in Burlington too. Crappy wifi service.