Honeymoon, Day 2: Prairie Campground and Newberry National Volcanic Monument

We had planned to stay at East Lake Campground in Newberry National Volcanic Monument for the second and third nights of our honeymoon. However, when we arrived there we discovered that Newberry was covered in three feet of snow, and the campgrounds were closed. Fortunately, we had chosen an alternate destination for our stay: Prairie Campground—just down the road from Newberry National Volcanic Monument. We decided to stay there for only one night and the head out to our next destination and stay an extra night.

Prairie Campground was pretty ordinary with few sights. A creek ran through just south of the campground and across the highway over to its neighbor campground Ogden—a group campground I used to frequent growing up with my family. My grandfather used to work for US West (now Qwest and soon to be Century Link) and they sponsored a group camping event for current and former employees called Pioneering in the Pines. (It’s been a great many years since I’ve attended these events, and from my understanding, they’ve moved the event to a new location.) The only picture I have of Prairie I took was of our campsite as we were about to leave.

As for amenities, I was not very impressed. They provided water that was within easy access of our campsite. However, while I was there, I found no place to dispose of wastewater. (I ended up dumping it into the pit toilet.) In addition, the toilet seats in the pit toilets were made of metal, and they were cold!

We set up camp as soon as we arrived, and as we started to get ready to prepare diner, we realized that we has forgotten to pack a skillet to cook our steaks in! Luckily for us, La Pine was a short drive away. We stopped at Ray’s grocery store, but they did not have a skillet to sell. However, the lady at the deli counter was a saint and recommended Shop Smart to us. We managed to find a skillet there—for a ridiculous price—that saved us from having to drive all the way to Bend.

After we cooked dinner on a propane stove we borrowed from my mother, we decided to make a fire for warmth and roasting marshmallows. However the fire gods were not with us that day and starting our fire turned out to be quite a chore. After several attempts to start one, we finally managed to get enough fire to roast a few marshmallows for s’mores.

Prairie was much colder than Blue Pool! Fortunately, I had learned my lesson from the night before, and wore my sweatshirt. Plus, Sarah and I slept under three blankets, which made it quite cozy until we woke in the morning—at around 5 or 6 am. We were too cold to build a fire to make breakfast, so we both decided to just head into La Pine for McDonalds. Afterwards we stopped at Gordy’s Truck Stop to take showers. We had stopped at the truck stop the previous night for dinner. It was delicious! The showers were awesome, too, and pretty affordable at $8 a piece.

We returned to Prairie to pack up camp, and head to Newberry for some sights before moving on to Bend. Newberry National Volcanic Monument is a park inside the caldera of a volcano. There are two lakes there—Paulina and East Lakes—with a total

of nine boat launches between them. Fishing is allowed and you can catch two kinds of trout—brown and rainbow—as well as two kinds of salmon—kokanee and Atlantic. There are five campgrounds: Cinder Hill, East Lake, Hot Springs, Little Crater, and Pauline Lake—in addition to the resort at Pauline Lake. In addition there are numerous hiking trails leading all over the caldera giving you plenty to explore.

Since there was snow covering most of the mountain, the only open road led to Paulina Lake Resort—which has access to Paulina Lake itself. We spotted several boats on the lake, including a persistent fisherman and his dog. It was so cold that portions of the lake were even frozen. Even though we didn’t get to see many of the sites, we definitely plan to give Newberry another visit!