This morning we were up and on the road by 7am. We left our spot on the street in West Seattle and made our way through the neighborhood and out to the highway heading south. We were super lucky because it was a weekday morning and northbound traffic into the city was horrible, but southbound was smooth-sailing. I was glad we weren’t heading north at that time of day (foreshadowing).
It took us just a few hours to get to Mt Rainier National Park. We entered in at the southwest Ranger Station and went to the Longmire Visitor Center and museum. We stamped our passports and went across the street and hiked around a meadow along an interpretive trail. We learned about the founding of the area as a medicinal hot springs resort. We hiked through the forest and saw several hot springs and a pretty little meadow. Then we left and drove further up the mountain to the Paradise area where they have a new visitor center, a lodge, and hiking trails. They are repaving the main road through this park and we were stopped several times for construction. On the way up, we were stopped once for at least 30 minutes. When we arrived at the visitor center, the parking lot was full, but hubby was going to be a gentleman and drop us off while he went in search of an open RV spot. When we pulled into the lot we saw a few shuttle buses parked in one area with just enough room for us to squeeze in, so we did. (Later, when we came out, we noticed the “Bus Parking” sign – oops!) We looked around the visitor center there and watched the orientation film. This visitor center offers a much better view of the Mt Rainier peak, so we took some photos too. (Mt. Rainier – also known as Tahoma to local native peoples – is the second highest mountain in the US, I believe, after Mt. McKinley/Denali in Alaska). We checked out the very beautiful lodge there as well. We decided to go back down the mountain to our campground, stopping at some other hiking trails and overlooks on the way. We were stopped again for construction, ugh, and pulled over for the trail to Nerada Falls. There’s an overlook that provides a view of the falls from the road, but you can also take a short hike down to the base of the falls for a better view. We decided to do it, even though it was pretty steep and knowing the hike back up would suck. It wasn’t too bad because the hike was very short. When we got to the end of the trail at the bottom of the falls, we were awarded a total view of both levels of the falls and a rainbow (score!). We took some photos and selfies and hiked back up to the RV.
(Click on any photo in the gallery above to scroll through the photos full screen).
Once we arrived at our RV we drove to our campground and checked in. We considered going for a hike from the campground that leads to Carter Falls once we were all set up, but that didn’t work out. The site I had reserved was in the E loop, but once we got there, we realized it was really unlevel, so we went to the ranger and asked if there was any other site we could move to. He gave us a list of three other sites to check out. To make a long story short, we eventually got situated and level in one of them. However, during the process of investigating the sites and having to switch sites again, we drove off and left our son at one of the sites! Above ¼ mile down the campground loop road, our daughter told us her brother wasn’t in the RV – and we thought she was kidding, but we stopped. We literally left him back at one of the sites, after we decided to go to another site and check that one. He was running after us and caught up to us pretty quickly once we stopped. Bad parents of the year award, right there.
After the long ordeal of getting a site and getting level in it (and making sure we had both of our kids with us), we decided to forego the hike and just fix dinner and get ready for the ranger show.
I made a fire in the pit, which had a cool little box grate and solid grill surface that folded down over the fire. I’ve seen the fold-down grates, but never the whole box with both a grate and a solid surface too. Once the fire was going, I folded the box down and put foil on the solid part of the cooking surface. I laid out 4 burgers and 8 hot dogs on the foil and tended to them until they were ready. The rest of the family made a salad at the picnic table.
Once we finished dinner and cleaned up, hubby kicked a soccer ball with our son and played catch (softball) with our daughter. I relaxed by the fire. A little before 8 pm we walked up to the campground amphitheater for the ranger talk. It was about old growth forests and the benefits of dead trees. It was interesting and the young ranger did a good job keeping everyone engaged and entertained. After the ranger show we went back to the RV and got ready for bed. We knew we had a lot of driving the next day!
