Mt. Rainier

September 24, 2017January 30, 2018

Pacific Northwest!! Mt. Rainier Area (Post 7 of TBD)

For those that have been following our blog, we’ve totally slacked the last several weeks in coming up with our latest post. Most of this is due to Hurricane Irma. We’ll make a brief post on Irma later, but for now let’s focus on a few areas from Days 11-14: Mt. St Helens, Yakima, and some back roads fishing.

Mt St Helens

The weather really put a damper on our trip to Mt St. Helens. It was cloudy and rainy the entire day, not unusual, but annoying when you’re a tourist. The drive to the volcanic wonder site taking some back roads was very pretty, which almost made up for the clouds. The visitor center at the Johnston Ridge observatory was very crowded, but extremely informative. We actually made 2 trips to the observatory that day. We were headed down about a 30 minute ride away when I thought I saw a break in the clouds. I took a chance, turned the car around and we headed back to the observatory and we were blessed with a slightly better view. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better than nothing! Learning about the eruption, how it affected the area, and the environmental changes was awe-inspiring. You can still see acres upon acres of trees fallen down and the re-growth hasn’t even begun yet and it may never begin. However, the surrounding areas once you get to that clear line where the devastation wasn’t as bad, is truly beautiful with large tress and lush growth.

Cowlitz Falls Park and Random Hiking

For most people, you won’t hear much about this little park. It isn’t even really a park as much as it is a parking lot. However, this little area was pretty neat. We brought the fishing gear and some waders on this day with some live worms and figured we’d give it a shot to catch some trout. There are so many areas of Washington with dams and fish hatcheries for Salmon and Trout. We didn’t really plan to do fishing on this trip, though the AirBnB we stayed was gracious enough to let us use all their fishing gear! At this park, they have some picnic tables, where we sat and ate lunch, and they have a little alcove of water set apart from the Cowlitz River and that is where all the locals come to fish. There were no tourists here. The people coming to fish here were locals and they were fishing for their 3 limit max of Rainbow Trout per person for food that night. Laura and Evan tried their luck with a lure on the river side while Olivia and I tested our luck with the worms. It didn’t take long, after about 30 minutes we had our first bite. I let Olivia reel it in and it was a beautiful rainbow trout, very small, but a pretty fish and she had fun reeling it in. Though she made sure to let everyone know daddy caught it she just reeled it. There’s no fooling her even though we tried to convince her she caught it. From here we decide to drive around and thought perhaps the roads might be open to the Western side of Mt St Helens. Unfortunately, they weren’t but we did some GeoCaching, random hikes, and a fun bumpy ride to scare everyone as we went downhill! We stretched our legs a bit, saw some beautiful scenery, and better yet we were the only people for miles!!

Oak Creek Wildlife Area, Naches, and Yakima

This day was a VERY rainy day. In fact it was rainy everywhere we went except Naches. Which very amazingly is the area where just about every Washington apple sold comes from it seemed like. There were rows upon rows of Apple and Cherry trees. On top of that, the warehouses with all the apple crates outside were pretty neat too. Laura kept wishing she could have brought an apple crate home for an home decoration idea. On this day we stopped for lunch at the Naches Applewood Park. It was a nice little park with a lot of open space, a couple of playgrounds and a swimming pool. We enjoyed our picnic lunch before the rain came at this stop too. Before Naches we decided to venture to Oak Creek Wildlife area. Let’s just say in the summer, it’s pretty bare and the animals are pretty scarce as well. The road is not recommended if you have a minivan as it’s very rough. We drove for a mile or 2 before turning around. In the winter this is a designated safe zone for animals and it’s really helped re populate various animals. We ventured after Naches to Yakima, if you go to your local Publix in Florida you can buy Yakima Apples for a whopping $4 per pound whereas in Washington they are $.99 per pound. Quite a lot of transportation cost associated with those apples. There isn’t much going on in Yakima, it’s a pretty big city and had a nice little outdoor shopping center, but other than that we didn’t do much there. We then battled a heavy rain on the way back to Packwood.

Sunset of Mt. Rainier

While it was rainy for the majority of our time this week in Packwood, we were extremely blessed to capture this picture here. We took Snyder road up to NF-1260 where at the very top there’s a host of trails you can take as well as some back woods camping spots. In the rain a few nights prior up here we saw a mom dropping of her two teenage sons to go camping. This night however, we didn’t go all the way to the top. A short ways from the top there’s an electrical station of some type with a massive antenna and an absolute perfect clearing to see Mount Rainier. The picture doesn’t even do it justice at all. The sun was setting and the clouds were moving away and left this amazing ring of clouds around the mountain that was just really neat to see. Couple that with the sunset and it made for a perfect evening for just Laura and I. Laura’s mom graciously watched the kids and got them ready for bed for us so we could go do that and I am so thankful she did! We might not have otherwise been able to get the picture.

This wraps up our post this week, stay tuned next week as we detail our drive from Packwood to Vancouver by way of Seattle and Everett.

August 28, 2017January 30, 2018

Pacific Northwest!! Mt. Rainier Area (Post 6 of TBD)

Days 8-10

These next few days were like going through a time warp between summer and winter in the same day. It was quite bizarre. On these days we did some more GeoCaching, made our own trail, went sledding in the snow, hiked across a waterfall, and enjoyed the Mt. Rainier area.

Our first day scoping out Mt. Rainier was a busy one and we didn’t even get to see the mountain! However, we had an absolutely blast! The day before on our drive into town we had already scoped out a few spots to stop and hike along the way. This helped make the day a little easier. Being that the house we rented was not equipped with internet…or cell phone signal, we had to rely on Blanton’s Market in town for their free wi-fi. Don’t fret, we did go in and buy something every single time! If you are in the Packwood area, Blanton’s really is a great little grocery store with very reasonable prices and fresh fruits and veggies.

Sledding

Alright onto our day. Our first activity…snow sledding. Yes…you read that right, snow sledding…in June! We had a blast. It was pretty cold, about 34 degrees,

but for the most part we had plenty of warm clothes. Poor Evan though, we didn’t quite pack the right pants for him and his pants weren’t really water proof. So he rode around in the car without pants on afterwards for a little while. He didn’t care though, he had so much fun sledding it made it up for all of it. The house we were staying through AirBNB had a sled they offered for us to use so we took full advantage and were just lucky enough to find a great spot to do it. Click here to see a funny video of our hiking adventures, click this link https://youtu.be/sg8ff_iMCKg

No Name Hike

Anyone know what the best kind of hikes are? The ones were you rarely run into a soul. There’s just something about the ability to get out into nature on a random trail with only one parking spot for a vehicle and making it your own. I don’t even believe this trail had a name to it as it didn’t appear on my Washington Trails App. However, it was very quick, and had an amazing view of the river at the end. We threw rocks, walked across a series of logs that had piled up and just enjoyed the atmosphere at the bottom of the mountain where there was no rain or clouds.

The View Itself

I’m not going to lie, I really wish we had delayed our trip a few weeks so that we could have had better weather and trail conditions. However, had we done that we would have encountered so many more tourists on the roads and trails of Mt. Rainier. So, because of the weather and the shear number of people, we didn’t spend much time near the visitor center or driving around. We did the one drive through the park so that we could saw we did it, and came away with the view to the right on the one sunny day. That day was pretty incredible as every turn we made we were fortunate to have a different perspective to see the mountain.

Comet and Christine Falls

This hike was really pretty interesting. It was one of the more strenuous hikes because it was essentially straight up. As we hiked up, we passed multiple groups coming down who said they turned around because they couldn’t pass, the snow became too difficult. The hike itself had some really pretty view in the short distance. However, we did come to an area where we could not pass with the kids. It was what looked like was a usual slanted rock stretch heading straight down about 200 feet to the bottom. What made this difficult was the snow build up. It was just any snow build up. No, this snow build up had half way melted and had left what was essentially a hollow cave/bridge for you to walk over. It was probably at the most 18 inches thick, so walking across it was pretty dangerous. We chose not to bring the kids, and in fact I was the only one that kept going. I knew by looking at the WTA app that I wasn’t that far from the last waterfall, maybe 3/4 of a mile. I made it across and started jogging. Without a carrier and other baggage, it felt like I could run for days…that didn’t last long though haha. I eventually made it to the more difficult snow area and I just kept sinking down in the snow. It was actually pretty painful on my knees catching me off guard each time. The view was so well worth it though and if there was more time I would have kept hiking even further.

Cora Lake Trail

Now technically this trail wasn’t within Mt. Rainier National Park. It was actually part of the “sister” park the Gifford-Pinchot National Forest. What was amazing about this trail was we were literally the only people anywhere within miles. We traveled up a random forest service dirt road. It appeared to be serving more as a logging road lately as they had been doing some planned clearings to help the over growth. The hike itself wasn’t difficult, finding the geocache on the hike took a minute, but it was fun. The hard part was finding the other geocache at the end of the trail. We spent probably an hour trying to cross the creek where the trail typically crosses. However, the water must have been extra high this time of year and didn’t give us anywhere to cross safely with the kids. So we ended up leaving our daughter, who had fallen asleep in the carrier, with my mother-in-law and backtracked a little bit to cross at a place where a small tree had fallen across the creek. Just because the creek is only 2-3 feet deep and 15 feet wide, doesn’t mean it is easy or not scary to have your 6 year old cross. However, him and I and Laura all made it across. We then double timed it around the trail. We had to cross the creek again up stream from the waterfall. This crossing was much easier. When we finally made it to the end, it was truly a beautiful view. With the clouds and mist it was an eery view that was really different from normal view that made this unique. We never did find the geocache. There was so much heavy snow around that was packed tight, it was most likely buried. We then proceeded to go back down. What we realized when we started following the trail down is that when we were first trying to make it up we couldn’t really find the trail and there were a lot of fallen trees headed straight up hill. We tried to pass that way but going uphill it became too difficult. Going downhill though we thought we’d give it a try and cut off about 3/4 of a mile of walking, plus gain a little adventure and training for our 6 year old. We repelled down the side of the cliff/mountain, grabbing onto whatever limbs/trees/branches we could. It was quite difficult, but still fun and it saved us some time for sure. We finally made it to the bottom of the trail ready for a snack!

Summary

Due to the weather, outside of the few hikes mentioned here, we spent a good bit of time looking for GeoCaches. There are so many in the area, it made it quite fun. It got to a point where anytime we would slow down the car, my son would flip his seatbelt out and yell out “are we geocaching??”. Up next Mt. St Helens, Packwood Area, and Yakima.

August 12, 2017January 30, 2018

Pacific Northwest!! (Post 5 of TBD)

Day 7 – Drive from Glacier, Wa. to Packwood, Wa.

It’s hard to believe our first week is in the books. The drive to our next destination, an AirBnb house in Packwood, Wa is about 214 miles. However, what’s a road vacation and road trip without going off the beaten path. What should have taken us 4.5 hours, ended up taking almost 10 hours. You may be thinking, what in the world took them so long. Well our trip was filled with GeoCache stops (at least a dozen), random pull offs to look at train tracks, rainbow chasing, and a waterfall hike.

The Backroads & Skykomish River Railroad Crossing

Google Maps kept telling us for the fastest route to pick up Interstate 5 and head south. We weren’t really interested in that because you miss so much of the countryside. Instead we took State Road 9 south from Deming, thru Sedro-Wooley (and a GeoCache!) before we finally catch Highway 2 south of Lake Stevens. We really didn’t know what was around us, we were just kind of driving and stopping when we wanted. When we came to the Lake Stevens area, it was really beautiful. The houses surrounding the lake were really neat, and the entire town was very quaint and welcoming. We kept thinking to ourselves, where does everyone work. Then you look at the map and realize how close you are to Everett and Seattle. Now you may be looking at the map and saying why did they take Highway 2, it doesn’t go toward Packwood. Well I had done some research online before our trip and saw this railroad bridge near Gold Bar, Wa that crosses the SkyKomish River with mountains in the background. I was not driving through that area, even if it took us an hour out of the way, without seeing that. It was really amazing because it was absolutely pouring down rain when we got there. I tried looking at the weather radar and it kind of looked like in half an hour or so there may be an opening. So we drove past it and decided to look for a GeoCache. Though, that search turned out to be a DNF. The Cache was right off the road somewhere, it was pouring down rain, and the ground fell straight down off a cliff. So I didn’t even let the kids get out of the car. We drove back to where the bridge was and it was amazing. The “break” that I thought I saw on radar was actually coming. I made Laura jump out of the car and go down to the tracks with me even though it was still raining because I could see the blue sky opening up a bit. Once we got down there it was perfect for about 3 minutes, we had the picture we were looking for which you see here. It was well worth it deviation from our path and the small town of Gold Bar was kind of neat too because we stopped in the park and found another GeoCache!

Snoqualmie Falls

As we continued our drive we made a quick pit stop at Snoqualmie Falls. This wasn’t a pre-planned stop until the morning we left. We were looking for a short hike to do to stretch our legs and maybe see a waterfall. What we didn’t expect was a massive tourist resort. This place is huge, and when I say it’s a tourist trap it really is. There is a giant resort, tons of parking, and tons of people. The trail is even mostly paved. The view was pretty neat, but we did not stay long, we looked, we walked, and then we left. We proceeded down the back roads taking us through what looked like an entirely planned city surrounding this waterfall. It was pretty neat…until we hit rush hour traffic from people getting home from Seattle. We didn’t go anywhere for close to an hour. We finally made it through and continued our journey approaching Mt. Rainier.

Mt Rainier Approach

Well there isn’t much to say about this day, it was extremely cloudy, misty rain, and cold. We could not see the mountain at all. In fact we could really only see certain portions of the side of the road. We did manage to catch one picture in the car looking forward just driving through the park as we got to lower elevations. The picture was pretty cool and I thought we should share.

June 28, 2017January 30, 2018

Pacific Northwest 2017!!! (Post 1 of TBD)

Intro to our Pacific Northwest Adventure!

With these next series of posts, we are going to take you on a voyage to the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Seeing places different from Florida is simply awe inspiring. Of all the places we have been, this is the first place my wife would seriously consider moving to. The trip extended 17 days departing from Orlando International Airport and flying into Vancouver International. If you read our most recent post on booking airfare, you know we got a really good deal. Our adventures encompassed so many different activities and places, and we want to make sure we tell you about all of them. To keep it well organized, we are breaking it up into probably 4 posts.

On the way Flight & Airport Reviews

Let me begin this sections with this, if you can avoid making a connecting international flight in Toronto DO SO!!! Our connection was in Toronto and it was very confusing, and time consuming. We had two hours from the time we arrived at our gate until our boarding for our next flight, and it took every bit of it to get there! In partial defense to the Toronto airport, they are going through a lot of construction. That being said the entire transition and customs process and directions were very confusing. Our flight to Vancouver, Canada from Orlando was with WestJet. WestJet is well known in Canada as the low cost carrier of Canada. They are relatively unknown to us in the United States. I will add that I would definitely fly WestJet again. Their customer service was top notch from the time of booking issues I mentioned in our previous post on the flights, to even letting us check extra bags for free at the counter. I couldn’t be more pleased with WestJet, and they specifically advertise that they NEVER OVERBOOK their flights! The Vancouver airport is a descent walk to baggage claim and it took a long time to get our bags. However, all our bags and car seats arrived with no problems. The best thing about the Vancouver Airport is the free luggage carriers. In Orlando you have to pay $5 USD to use one.

Rental Car Pickup

We then headed over to the National Car Rental Emerald Club Section. I can’t say enough good things about National, I have used them for work and personal rentals for a few years now. If you book a midsize car under the free Emerald Club program, you can pick any vehicle from the Emerald Club Aisle. We walked over and picked out the first minivan we saw and proceeded on our merry way. Like I mentioned before, I searched for weeks to find the best rental car rate and for this entire trip we paid less than $500 TOTAL for this minivan. That price is almost unheard of, especially for a minivan. The Emerald Aisle section at the Vancouver Airport was loaded with Quad Cab Pickups, SUVS, Full Size cars, and even a full-size Excursion.

Snowater Resort

The first week of our stay we used a timeshare exchange to stay at the Snowater Resort. I’d hardly call this place a resort, but nonetheless it’s located right outside the National Park on the way to Mt Baker Ski area so they call themselves a resort. We had a 1 bedroom loft unit that was supposed to be 2 private bedrooms, but it definitely wasn’t a private bedroom as it is open to the living room below. The scenery is gorgeous with views of the raging Nooksak River out back made for an awesome sound machine at night. It was a down time for the resort so it was really quiet. Two big negatives with the resort. The upstairs loft room gets very hot during the day and takes a while to cool off. There is no fan up there so regulating the air flow was very difficult. There was also a cleaning fee of $130, yet they ask you to throw all the trash out at the dumpster down the street, wash all the dishes, and take all the linens off the beds. All in all the resort met our needs, the location was good, and we lived to see another day. When we come back we’d probably seek out an AirBNB in lieu of this place.

Glacier, WA

We can’t say enough good things about the town of Glacier, WA. First on the list is the Wake n Bakery!! This place was so neat. They make a really good cup of coffee and several desert bars and cookies. Our favorite was the Magic Cookie Bar. In fact, we liked it so much, we bought a half sheet to take with us the Friday we left Glacier for our next destination so we could have some every day! The owners are very nice, the place just has a cool vibe that makes you feel welcome and the food is great! If you are passing by or staying anywhere near Glacier, WA, the Wake n Bakery has to be on your list of places to visit. Give them a follow on Facebook so you don’t forget too!! Our second favorite stop was the Glacier Public Service Center run by the National Forest Service. The folks there are very knowledgeable of the entire area, they can point you to some good hikes to check out, road closures, as well as some neat information about the history of the area. Last but not least, Chair 9 Pizza and Sports Restaurant. We stopped in here after one of our difficult hikes (more on this later), the beer was good, the pizza was good, and the kids colored while dad got to watch sports, plus they had free WiFi, which in an area with no cell signal is a welcomed site to help plan your next day adventures.

Since this post was pretty long, I figure it’s best to let you read through this and digest it before overloading you. Don’t worry there is more to come! The next post will focus on what we did each day the first week as well as direct links to the Washington Trails App as well as All Trails app and my subsequent reviews and pictures of each trail. For now enjoy the info in this post and if you have questions, shoot them to us in the comments. Thanks!