Washington Vaction - Part 3

Since everyone else had left and there was room in Brittany's house, we slept inside Tuesday night so that we didn't have to pick up our tent in the morning. We got out as soon as we could. We planned to spend the next couple days with my good friend and former roommate Liz and her family. Liz has been a wonderful friend to me ever since we were roommates together at BYU. She was there to cheer me on and help me through rough spots as I was dating, engaged, and then married to Nate.

Originally we had planned to visit Seattle on Wednesday and spend Thursday at Mount Rainier National Park, but luckily Liz was wise enough to check the weather forecast. She discovered Thursday was supposed to be stormy at Mount Rainier, but Wednesday was not. So, we switched our plans around. We picked up Liz and her son Sterling in Tacoma and then continued to the park.

As I quickly discovered, this park is amazing. I fell in love with the rush of crashing waterfalls, the roaring of turbulent creeks, the splendor of jagged peaks, and the color of wildflower-laced meadows. We only had one afternoon to spend in this harsh and wild paradise. That simply wasn't enough, and now a part of me hungers to go back and again partake of the asperous beauty found there.

We had time for so little, but I thoroughly enjoyed the time we had. We started by trying to hike to Christine Falls. We intended to actually see Christine Falls, but instead we apparently took the hike to Comet Falls up to the bridge above Van Trump Creek. The creek cascaded over several drops we could see from here, but Christine Falls itself was just below the bridge. We could only see the spot where the water surged over its edge before being lost to our view. It was still a beautiful spot though.

 

After returned to our vehicle, we pressed on. We next stopped at a nice viewpoint of the Tatoosh Range. It was fun to watch Liz playfully chase Sterling here too. I really enjoyed watching Sterling and seeing Liz interact with him.

Next we came to the aptly named Paradise area. Given the many signs along our way warning visitors that this area was full and that no further parking was available, we felt very fortunate to find a parking spot. We obtained a basic trail map from the Visitor's Center and set out on a loop hike we thought would fit into our self-allotted time frame. First we set out to the 72 foot high Myrtle Falls.

Myrtle Falls

Above Myrtle Falls

From there we continued along the Skyline Trail and enjoyed the incredible view along the way!

Tatoosh Range

We found the number of hikers we saw dropped off pretty abruptly after the waterfall. After awhile we came to another small falls, right below which the trail crossed the creek. There was no bridge here, nor was there any good stepping stones. Luckily, Nate helped get Austin and Sterling across, and we all made it without soaking our feet.

Austin after crossing the creek

After that, we had the trail to ourselves. It seemed that any other potential hikers nearby us had been completely deterred by the water crossing. It probably was this lack of other people that induced two marmots to run across the trail directly in front of us as we continued on our way.


We turned and headed down the mountainside at the Fourth Crossing Trail. This trail looked much less traveled than the Skyline Trail. It was also much muddier, and in places it was covered by snow. It followed the creek though and it was one of the prettier more pleasant trails I have ever been on.

Unfortunately, we missed the heigth of the wildflower season the Paradise area is famous for. We were probably around a week early by Liz's estimations. However, we still enjoyed the wildflowers we did see along the way, many of which I was unfamiliar with.

Avalanche Lily

The Fourth Crossing Trail connected to the one-way scenic drive road below, so we followed this road back. Even the walk along the road was beautiful though. It seems there are creeks and waterfalls flowing freely everywhere in this park.

It was getting pretty late by the time we got back to Liz's house that evening. We ate a crock-pot chili dinner she had prepared for us, figured out our plans for the next day, and went to bed.

Thursday we headed up north to the Seattle area. First we actually drove past Seattle to the Boeing Factory where we took a tour that particularly interested Nate. That was pretty interesting. Liz kindly watched Austin and Sterling in the museum area since they were too small to go on the tour. They had a great time in the gallery though.

Austin driving a plane in the gallery. A former pilot happened
to be there too and told Austin what all the buttons did.

This large funny looking plane was designed to be able to carry all the other
planes' pieces from other locations to then be assembled at the factory

After leaving the Boeing factory, we headed back into Seattle and ate lunch on the lawn at the Arboretum. Then we walked along the trail with floating bridges. It was fun to see the water along the way blanketed with lilies.

Next we visited the Fremont District of Seattle. Here we went to Theo Chocolate and sampled lots of their chocolate bar flavors. Some of them were really good, like their mint, orange, coconut, cherry almond, milk, salted almond, and raspberry. Other favors were....really different, like their black rice quinoa crunch, chili, and coconut curry. We bought a little chocolate, then went for a short walk around the area.

It was definitely a unique place. It seemed to be full of various items that other places around the world had wanted to get rid of, and so for whatever reason this district adopted them. The infamous sculpture of Vladimir Lenin from Czechoslovakia is apparently even located somewhere in this area now (a fact I find interesting since we learned about this statue while we were in Prague). It is a quirky place, full or all sorts of odds and ends. We didn't get to seeing a lot of things, such as the Fremont Troll, a large troll sculpture that sits under a bridge, but we did get to see the Fremont Rocket, which bears Fremont's motto "De Libertas Quirkas" - meaning "Freedom to be Peculiar."

Across the street from the rocket at the top of another building is a sculpture of Saturn. Also nearby is a mosaic of the desert complete with a UFO spouting invading aliens.

Down another street is a sculpture of a whale, and near that are a couple topiary dinosaurs - an adult and a baby.

After leaving Fremont, we tried to get back to Liz's house and immediately got stuck in ungodly traffic. We literally inched our way down a short street in a half hour or more that would have taken us about 3-5 minutes to walk down. After we finally managed to get on the freeway, we decided to find a place to eat and let the traffic clear out some before attempting to go to Liz's place again. So, we outside at an Ivar's. We got back to Liz's place much later than hoped for. The kids went to bed and we all spent some time visiting.

It was so wonderful to spend time with Liz, Ammon, and Sterling. We greatly appreciate their generosity in letting us come visit and stay with them. I have been wanting to go up to visit Liz in Washington for years, so it was nice that it finally happened! I wish we got to see each other more often.

We left Friday morning, July 8, to drive back home. It was a long trip, and we were grateful when it was over. We were particularly grateful it was safe and without incident.

Washington Vacation - Part 2

Sunday, July 3rd, we went to church. Our reunion drastically increased the size of the local ward. After church, we meet at the little branch building in Joyce to prepare and eat dinner. We also played card games, the kids played and colored, and we had a patriotic family program.

The kids singing a song for the family program

Between other activities, we took family pictures. As it turned out, I was the only one with a tripod, so I ended up taking a number of the pictures. Luckily, we had been able to buy a new memory card Saturday evening, so my camera was back in working order.

The entire group that was there on Sunday

After the program and pictures, we went back to Salt Creek in another attempt to see the sunset. There still wasn't much of one, but we did see a little color in the sky.

Monday morning (July 4th) we headed out with Melissa and Max to the Hoh Rainforest. While this area was definitely full of all sorts of moss and fungi, it was less dense than the Quinault Rainforest was. We hiked along the main trail a ways, and it rained on us during a good portion of the hike.

The moss-drapped trees here had branches that almost looked like soft hairy green arms. They kind of reminded us of the limbs of orangutans. At one point, we also spotted the largest slug we have ever seen making its way across the trail.

The trail follows pretty close to the Hoh River in many places. We were interested to learn that the river gets its milky blue color from glacial flour, which is made of tiny particles that form when a glacier grinds against the bedrock. The bedrock is ground into what looks like a flour, and that is then washed down into the river by melt-off. This stuff isn't toxic, but apparently it will clog water filters, so you aren't supposed to take water to drink from the Hoh River. Instead, hikers can take water from tributaries flowing into the Hoh River, which lack the glacial flour.

At the end, I ran/hiked ahead of the group in an effort to make it to Tom's Creek, where there was a small waterfall visible through the thick foliage. I did succeed in this, but somehow passed everyone else on the way back without seeing them. I ended up searching all over, and then waiting a short time at the visitor's center until I saw them at another trailhead. It would seem there was more than one point you could start the trail from.

After leaving the rain forest, we headed out to Rialto Beach. Walking out to Hole in the Wall had been one of the things I most wanted to do during the trip, so I was very disappointed when it was decided there would not be time to make it there and get back in time for dinner. Still, it was a scenic beach, and we enjoyed wandering about, skipping rocks in the water, taking pictures, and watching the waves crash in.

There were also a lot of driftwood logs along this beach, but not nearly as many as there had been at Ruby Beach.

After a hamburger/hot dog dinner that evening back at Brittany's house, we played some on the rock climbing treadmill machine they had. Then we headed out to the pier in Port Angeles with other family members to watch the fireworks. It was pretty cold, but we enjoyed the show in any case.

Monday was the last day of the reunion, so everyone else left Tuesday morning to go home. We stayed an extra day though in hopes of seeing more of the park. We didn't want to drive out again to a far-out point though, so we decided to try for Hurricane Ridge. The view from Hurricane Ridge on a clear day is fantastic, but the area seems to have just as many, if not more cloudy days as clear ones. We tried to watch to Hurricane Ridge webcam to see when it would be clear enough. In the meantime, we tried to get a bit of laundry done and we hiked a short trail behind Brittany's house. I particularly enjoyed observing all the wildflowers along the way, many of which I was unfamiliar with.

Foxglove

Avalanche Daisy

 

The trail led us to a hill from which we could see the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the mountains across it that are part of Canada.

After returning from our hike, we found that the power was out at Brittany's house, so finish our laundry was put on hold. We ate lunch and decided to try Hurricane Ridge. The drive up was pretty by itself, and as things turned out, it was clear enough at the top to see a good portion of the mountains...at least at first.

According to the informational plaque, these rocks used to be
at the bottom of the ocean

We hiked up to Sunrise Ridge. The mountains around there were visible at first, but within a few minutes the clouds came rolling in and covered them up.

Before clouds arrived

After clouds arrived

Even with the clouds obscuring our view, the area was pretty. We saw a black tailed deer right next to the trail at one point.

After visiting Hurricane Ridge, we headed down to the pier to see the boats. We also made sure that Austin had some time to play on the nearby ship playground. He had been hoping for a chance to explore it since he saw it before fireworks the night before.

It was quite windy, but it was fun to walk along the shore. I especially enjoyed watching the birds. Too bad I don't own a good pair of binoculars.

That evening we were able to attend one of Nate's cousin's Eagle court of honor. We also finished packing up our things so we could leave first thing the next morning.