Back on the road...Mount Rainier

In the four months since we've been here, we have covered three of the cardinal directions...West (to the Quinault rainforest and the Olympic Peninsula), North (to the Skagit Valley for the tulip festival), and East (to Ellensburg, where Auntie Pea will move this fall). Today was the day for us to tackle the South...Mount Rainier.

Today was an auspicious day for this, mainly because it was the first day since last November that we have not had a single cloud in the sky. The temperature was in the high 60's-low 70's today, which made it the perfect day to make a run for the mountain (errr...volcano).

We packed a cooler full of goodies and headed down I-5. All of us had a great time checking out the magnificent sights of the Cascade Range and Mount Rainier National Park (the second national park we have visited in a week!) Within 2 hours we were up in the mountains, twisting and turning around the switchbacks and narrow two-lane roads inside the park.

Despite spring's official arrival in the Puget Sound area several weeks ago, the snow in the park was impressive...banks rose 10-15 feet on either side of the road. Once we reached the visitor center (at an altitude of 5000 feet, and aptly named "Paradise") we stumbled out of the car, our heads dizzy from the thin mountain air.

We had a nice picnic lunch at the visitor's center and drove as far as we could until roadblocks stopped us...many of the roads here are only open during the summer months (July-October).

Nora kept us all entertained and helped point out all of the things that she was seeing..."mountain," "water," "pretty". She also seems to have established quite a fondness for Simon and Garfunkel's "Cecilia" which she demanded we play over, and over, and over, and over again on the way home.

The next few posts are some highlights from the trip...enjoy!