My favorite color is blue. It is the color of sunny skies, blue jays (my favorite kind of bird), blueberries, Kentucky grass, and lakes.

But if all lakes are blue, than what do I call THIS?

This is Oregon’s Crater Lake. People that have never heard of Crater Lake think it can’t be real when they see if for the first time. People that have seen it call it the bluest lake in the world. Now, I haven’t seen all the lakes in the world, so I cannot testify to that. But I can say that it is the bluest lake I have ever seen.

So yes, Crater Lake is very, very, blue. When we saw it in the spring, all the pollen from the trees had fallen atop the water, giving the lake a more mystical look than it already had. The pollen looked almost like fairy dust on that blue water of blue waters.

I just could not stop staring at the lake. I loved it all - the blue, the shadows of the mountains on the water, the green island. I got out the binoculars to take a closer look at Wizard Island - a volcano in Crater Lake - and saw that the water around it was teal, like a lagoon, and very beautiful as well. Than I turned my gaze back to the lake.

A couple days later, we took a very long bike ride down to the waters, and I filled up my water bottle to taste it. It was so pure and clean and sweet. No other water can compare after that!
   

I went back with some girls from our clan who wanted to paint Crater Lake. I’m not a painter, but I went along and brought my poem book and a pen so I at least had something to do. Their colors really brought out the beauty of Crater Lake, and I was amazed that they could create something so real when Crater Lake is so phantasmagorical.

I would rank Crater Lake right up with The Grand Canyon and Carlsbad Caverns as one of my favorite sights in this country. It’s little known, but so pretty, like a rough sapphire amidst a chest of cut diamonds. And isn’t that more valuable in the long run?

Miranda Boyink is a member of the Youth Travel Blogging Mentorship Program

Photo courtesy and copyright Miranda Boyink