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Published: July 27th 2019
We were up very early this morning. Both of our phones started ringing with robo calls at 5 AM. OK, so they thought we were on EDT. But 8 AM is still too early for a robo call. Are we not all still waiting for the day when these calls cease once and for all? 5 AM. So of course it woke the dog too, and he figured it was time to get up and go for a walk. And so, our day began.
We left the hotel at 7:45 and 61 degrees and headed west. Our target for today was Everett, WA, which is a town just north of Seattle. However, we had a plan to get there via Mount Rainier National Park. And that is what we did.
When we left Walla Walla, we noticed that the sky was quite smoky. We never did find anything online about the cause of it. Perhaps the Yakima Valley is always like this. We did pass by a power plant that was spewing a lot of smoke into the sky. Perhaps it was being trapped by the surrounding mountains. In any event, you may notice that some of the photos
show the mountains a bit obscured.
Suddenly we came upon a large body of water and we decided it had to be a lake, a very large lake. But it wasn’t. It was the Columbia River. We followed this river for a long time the last time we were here…all the way to the Pacific Ocean. But today, we crossed it and kept on going.
We saw a lot of mountains again today…not huge mountains, but bigger than hills. And they were covered with lots of fir and pine and spruce trees. And again today, we felt like we were in Maine…the weather, the topography, the houses, the small towns. It was kind of like being back home.
There was a lot of agriculture going on. We saw corn fields covered with a yellow haze from the corn flowers in bloom. We saw more golden wheat fields. We saw apple orchards and groves of apricot trees bearing fruit. And we saw A LOT of vineyards. The hills were alive with grapes, the rich green vines all in neat rows and patterns, lining the hillsides.
For a while we followed the Naches River, a tributary of the
Yakima River which makes this valley so rich and green. For some reason, I thought Naches was down in the southeast. I was wrong.
Around noon we entered the park and it didn’t take long for us to get one of the best views of this glaciated mountain top, gleaming in the warm sunshine. It is truly a majestic, yet graceful mountain, rising to an elevation of 14,411 feet over the valley below. We drove on, looking for a ranger station, a welcome center, or someplace to get a map so that we could figure out exactly where we were. We struggled for about an hour until we happened upon a little building hidden in the trees where we were able to get some directions to the Welcome Center and how to exit the park. My research today showed that people were complaining about the wait times to get up to the highest vantage point for the best viewing, and they were right. It took us over half an hour to drive through the gate and onward. We were told it was a half hour up and the area was really congested. So we took a side road to
a camping area and found a place by the side of the road where we could view the mountain and listen to the White River while we had lunch. We never did go up to the Welcome Center. Perhaps another day. The White River was flowing strongly downhill from the peak of the mountain and it truly does look white…well a very light tan. It is the melt of the glacier above and that is what makes it look that color.
Around 2 PM we headed for the park exit, knowing that the drive to Everett would not be pretty, and it wasn’t. The traffic around Seattle is the worst I have ever experienced and it lived up to its reputation again today. It took us a long time to get to our hotel. And what did we discover when we arrived? The hotel that we had stayed in 2 years before. And the clerk behind the desk was the same guy, too. I even think we may have gotten the same room at the end of the hall.
Tomorrow, Vancouver and Kamloops.
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Joanne Burns
non-member comment
Brought back lots of memories. Used to travel to Seattle often and loved seeing Mt. Rainer. It is often obscured due to the fog, smog, and or smoke but it is always majestic. Always enjoyed the hustle and bustle around the public market. We’ve taken the ferry over to Victoria to Bouchard Gardens which is a gorgeous place.