Raining on Mt. Rainier

The snow lies dark and deep on the foothills of Mt. Rainier, Washington.

Washington state is damp. The locals call it liquid sunshine... not a bad approach to making the silk purse out of the sow's ear. Our visit to this beautiful state has taken us through tall Douglas Fir trees – so tall they seem to touch the sky. We parked in a city park, amid thick, bushy birch trees and cottonwood trees.
Amidst the rain showers, a watery sun breaks through and we decided to take advantage and drive to Mt. Rainier National Park. It's 72 miles away and we take the little Honda on jaunts like this. We started at 177 feet above sea level. But it was a climb all the way to the east. The rains came and went and came again.
We passed through Mossyrock – well-named since most of the rocks and trees here are coated in moss. We came to Ashford and were warned this was the last place to purchase gasoline before entering the park. But our trusty little Honda sips gently from the gas tank and we drove on.
One of the great, great advantages of being of a certain age is you can purchase a lifetime pass for $10 which provides free admittance to any of our national parks. Since the less aged must pay between $15 and $25 to enter this should go down as the best $10 we have ever spent.
Mt. Rainier is the fifth National Park, signed into being by President McKinley back in 1899. The mountain stands at 14,471 feet. We never did see it because of the snow and the low clouds as we ascended.
We came to Paradise where the visitor center is located and greeted sturdy young things, outfitted in snow shoes or cross country skis who were heading out on the trails. We, instead, visited the movie theater where the majesty of Mt. Rainier unfolded before us. This is an active volcano which currently is sleeping. It still spouts steam through vents but there has not been a major eruption in 73 years. Back then 30 feet of cement-like mud descended on the highway.
Mt. St.. Helens, just 35 miles down the chain, celebrated its 30th anniversary of exploding and moving millions of tons of mountain, as well as millions of trees and mud. We actually were able to view Mt. St. Helens on our way back to the motor home because the clouds parted and revealed the angry face of the mountain.
As we climbed to Paradise, we passed the 3,200 foot elevation and that's when the snow began. The mountains within sight were thickly coated while the packed snow alongside the highway was six to eight feet high. Mt. Rainier gets 680 inches of snow on an average year. It had a record snowfall in 1976 – 1,120 inches of snow. That number is correct.
We saw some deer munching on the endless quantities of moss. They looked at us with no fear. There also are brown bear, mountain lion and mountain goats.

Earlier in the week, we had driven through the Columbia River Gorge on the Oregon side (The river separates Washington and Oregon states.). Now we are traveling in the footsteps of Lewis and Clark who passed this way in 1804-5. We camped in a state campground among the moss-covered giant trees. Then we drove the car to a variety of massive waterfalls along the highway. The river had many dams to produce hydro electric power. Mountains rise straight up from the water's edge and our journey was three days of glorious views.

Monday, May 24
We ventured into Seattle, through its maze of rough roads and flying, aggressive traffic. We made our way to Pike's Market where much of the food of the city is sold – particularly the fresh fish. It's a contact sport, in many ways: You choose your fish, a salesman in orange overalls grabs it and shouts to his mate behind the counter. The mate returns the call, repeating the order (e.g.: Four pounds, fresh halibut”) and the salesman flings the fish through the air. It always is caught with a flourish by the behind-the-counter guy and a cheer erupts from the dozens of tourists. Good entertainment.
Our wanderings took us through an international city of food and crafts: Pakistan, Nepal, China, Indonesia, Thailand, Poland, Russia. All the ethnic food you could ever wish to sample.
Seattle is a difficult city in which to walk because so much of it is on the steep side of hills. But the city fathers have brilliantly designated the downtown area as a “free” bus zone. This means you can walk, hop on a bus, get off and walk, then hop on another bus. The drivers are helpful about guiding you. If you have a bike, you simply lower a device on the front of the bus and clip your bike on before climbing aboard. And it doesn't cost a penny. We were both mighty impressed as this keeps cars off the city streets.

We have now passed the 4,000-mile mark in our journey. Add 1,100 miles for the driving we have done in our trusty little Honda. We are less than 150 miles south of Vancouver, British Columbia and plan to be there on Saturday morning.