Lost Keys at Crater Lake

by Terry
(Klamath Falls, OR)

Several years ago our family went to Crater Lake the day after Christmas to go inter-tubing. We parked at the visitor center and walked down the road about a quarter of a mile and found a place where some other people were tubing. Not wanting to lose our keys I put them in our video camera bag. Later in the day my son asked if he could videotape us tubing and of course I said 'Yes'. When it was time to go home we walked back the quarter mile to the car. I reached into the bag to retrieve the car keys and they weren't there. I asked if anyone had taken the keys out of the bag and everyone said they hadn't. So there we were - stranded at Crater Lake and no way to get home and hardly anyone in the parking lot. The only choice we had was to go back and look for them in the snow. We walked back to where we were tubing and started to look for the 'needle in the haystack'. Fortunately for us our tracks were still in the snow. We were able to find the spot where we had put the video camera bag. We started digging. After about 10 minutes someone exclaimed "I found them!" We couldn't believe the keys had been found. Evidently, when my son got the camera out of the bag it had turned over. Needless to say, that Christmas became one of our all time favorite Christmases - we were so thankful we had found our keys!