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.