Mount Rainier National Park
With my son in town for a visit, the three of us (and two dogs) piled into the van and took off for the mount – Mount Rainier to be exact. Although I have had a single day-trip into the park back in 2013, Kerri had not been to Mount Rainier in her past travels so it was a nice notch to add to her belt. Our plans were pretty simple – to just find a place to boondock outside the Northern side of the park on the first night and drive around the North-East corner and wrap South on the second day. There I had a hike that I really wanted them both to experience before a night’s camp in the official campground. Lastly, we would cut directly through the park (and up the Mount itself) and into “Paradise” itself on our final day.
We didn’t get all that far on day-1. We tried to visit a few waterfalls along the route, but the weekend crowds were thick as usual, being this close to a large metro area. Only a couple hours of driving and we had entered the National Forest and turned ourselves down a gravel road to find a spot to call it a day. We were not the only ones with this idea of course, so we had to venture further back into the forest to avoid some crowds, eventually finding a secluded enough spot to park the van and whip out the chairs to relax and hang out with my son over a beer (the first time we have had a beer together).
One of the reasons I wanted to boondock one of our nights this weekend was to finally get to shoot my new rifle – bought a few months back in Nevada – with Tim. After a bit of scouting of the immediate area to ensure we had a safe location and no one was camped behind that area, we pulled out the gear and gave the new piece a solid run-through while Kerri and the dogs hung out in the van. Our shooting together has always been time well spent. It has been a great Father-Son bonding as I educated him on guns and gun safety time in our past. Yet somehow this time felt different, like he knew more than I did about our activity. He’s been shooting since before he was 10 years old and I’ve always stressed safe and responsible shooting. It was nice to see that at age 20 all that education stuck. He’s always been a smart kid though, making it easy on me to teach him something at which time he masters it in no time, exceeding my skills in the process.
The next morning we set out to make the wrap around the North-east corner of the park and then South. This would bring us to the National Park’s Ohanapecosh Campground where we nabbed a spot early in the day then set out to conquer a short hike out to the Patriarch’s. The Grove of the Patriarchs trail was one I visited in my previous run through this area. It blew my mind then and I talked it up to Tim and Kerri before we arrived. Memory seems to really distort the truth at times. Or maybe it was just the different between Summer vs Autumn visits, but the Patriarchs just didn’t seem that big a deal this time around. They were trees. Old trees. But they were actually quite average. Maybe it is experience that is the real distorter – what was once awe inspiring is surpassed one day and you never really realize it until you go back and kill that memory of awe. We were back at camp fairly early. Early enough to simply relax with my son and see some of the nearby sights to the campground.
On our final day in the area we drove up and into the park-proper. The main, and only, road that traverses through/over Mount Rainier – Stevens Canyon Road – will bring the traveler to Paradise, literally. Up at the top of the park road is an extremely picturesque are reminiscent of Going to the Sun road in Glacier, but much shorter. Full of wildflowers and big views that even the smoke from California and Canada could not ruin. On our way up we passed by numerous water falls and other sights for Tim and Kerri to view and photograph.
It’s been a long time since Tim cruised in Big Blue with me, and he is a much larger guy than previous. He had to spend all the driving time in the back of the van. Not a whole lot of conversing can take place at those distances, so he entertained himself in other ways, including taking a nice photo or two from a perspective only he had – the view of how we travel, from within. It cute as heck to see Moose there in his travel-spot, and for those that remember my National Parks lapel pin collection you can see their new home in the van above our heads.
In the end we went ahead and rolled all the way back into the Seattle area to stay at Saltwater State Park, just a few miles south of the Se-Tac airport where Tim had a flight out of the next day. We celebrated the successful weekend with an almost-delivered Chinese food meal. Kerri had to go find the driver who was completely lost by the concept of a campground. While a beautiful campground, the novelty of jumbo jets flying *directly* over us – every…sixty…seconds – on approach to the airport grew tiring quickly. Somehow we slept through the night anyway.
It was a good time hanging out with Tim, and showing both him and Kerri another National Park. The unfortunate part, and a worry for me, was that Kerri had to deal with not one Tim (me), but two of us, for three and a half days. One of us alone is a tough enough job, but two? Well that is just torture! I am feeling more and more compelled to apologize to Imelda who not only had to live with me for 20+ years, but had to deal with both of us for more than half of those years. That must have been much more difficult than I ever gave her credit for.
