MT. RAINIER SHINES FOR US – MT. RAINIER NATIONAL PARK, WA

Wow!  Mt. Rainier was eye-popping on Wednesday, not a cloud in the sky!

At the end of our stay in Astoria, we had two days to travel up to the Seattle area for a long-planned gathering of friends.  With a forecast of warm, sunny weather, it looked like we had a good chance to see Mt. Rainier from bottom to top.  We found a new-to-us campground, reasonably close to Mt. Rainier (even closer to the east side of Mt. St. Helens) and off we went.

Taidnapam (pronounced Tide-na-pom) Park (click here to read our review and see photos) situated on Riffe Lake, is owned by Tacoma Power, the power supplier for the city of Tacoma.  When we arrived on Tuesday afternoon, it was less than a quarter full, most of the campers having left on Labor Day. 

It seemed like we spent hours picking out our site… too many choices!  We finally settled on a long, level site and set up camp.  Roof-mounted satellite TV dishes don’t work here, and we didn’t have a local NPR radio station, either.   Surrounded by tall pines, without our usual ties to the “outside world”, it felt like real camping (well, except for the full hookups and cell service!).

On Wednesday, we were off to see Mt. Rainier.  We haven’t been in that national park for five years, but had fond memories of the sunshine, the beautiful lakes and trails, and the lush gardens of wildflowers.  Yesterday, we had a repeat performance.

The good thing about visiting the park after Labor Day was the absence of huge crowds of people.  The bad thing was the road construction!  Highway 12, the road from I-5 over to Yakima and the main route to Mt. Rainier, had big electric signs announcing delays of up to 2 hours.  Fortunately, we turned off of highway 12 to Taidnapam Park before we tangled with the serious road construction.

The main road into the park is closed, so the only access to Paradise, the most visited area of the park and home to the visitor center, is through the west entrance.  For us, that meant a drive north on highway 7, also undergoing (thankfully, minor) construction.  Once in the park, access to most of the eastern side was difficult (or impossible) – but our goal was Paradise (isn’t everyone's??) and we persisted.  We found a parking spot in the visitor center parking lot, ate our picnic lunch in the sunshine, watched the park’s overview video, and headed off up Deadhorse trail towards the glacier-covered mountain.

If I ever take a photography class, it will be “How to Photograph Lush Wildflower Gardens With Your Little Pocket Sized Digital Camera”.  Photographing the massive bulk of Mt. Rainier, shining (and melting) in the warm sunshine was easy.  Capturing the beauty of the multicolored, multilayered wildflower gardens was impossible (for me).  Small creeks burbled through moss and flowers; tiny waterfalls trickled down rock faces through hanging gardens.  We crossed crusty patches of snow now and then, and stopped frequently to exclaim at the incredible views of Mt. Rainier.

At the end of our trail. close enough to the glaciers to hear the sounds of distant ice chunks falling, we caught our breath and turned back.  Behind us, unseen as we huffed and puffed our way up the trail, snow covered Mt. Adams shimmered in the bright sunshine like a mirage in the far distance, another of the great volcanic cones of the Cascades (Mt. Adams is the second highest mountain in Washington; Mt. Rainier is the tallest).

Since I heard from so many readers about the layout my photographs from Astoria, I thought I’d also post the Mt. Rainier photos as an album – this time, in a slightly different format.  I like it.

Our Day at Mt. Rainier National Park VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

OUR SUNNY HOLIDAY WEEKEND – ASTORIA, OREGON

The Weather Gods surely smiled on Astoria this weekend!  A gloriously HOT (mid-80’s) Saturday was followed by a beautifully sunny Sunday.  Foggy Monday morning gave way to sunshine and 70 degrees in the afternoon (while the fog bank hung over the beach, a few miles to our west).

We took full advantage.  We visited Ft. Clatsop (where Lewis and Clark and company spent a cramped and dismal winter at the end of their western explorations), then took our lunch for a picnic on the beach at Ft. Stevens State Park.  We walked the paved Riverwalk along the Columbia River in Astoria, and took the narrated ride on the historic Riverfront trolley – where we learned that the entire town of Astoria, first built out of wood on pilings in the Columbia River, burned to the water line in 1922. 

We browsed the Astoria Sunday market.  We visited the Astoria Column and took a drive over to Sunset Beach.  We watched huge freighters in the deep water channel of the Columbia River, where they exchanged the Bar Pilot for the River Pilot.  We walked and gawked and enjoyed a few meals out.  We sat in our chairs on our lawn at Lewis & Clark Golf & RV Resort (click here to read our review) and enjoyed the view and the sunshine. 

The list of what we didn’t do is almost as long.  We passed on the Columbia River Maritime Museum since we toured it last time we visited Astoria – but if you come to Astoria, it should be number ONE on your list (just my opinion)!  We didn’t get out to see the Salt Works, where the Corps of Discovery boiled sea water to extract precious salt.  We didn’t make it to the Flavel House Museum or take the self guided tour of historic Astoria.  See?  I knew there would be a reason to return!

Labor Day in Astoria VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

OUR LABOR DAY HIDEAWAY – ASTORIA, OR

In our working lives, Labor Day was somewhat bittersweet – the last summer holiday weekend.  At our house, my large vegetable garden was completely out of control by Labor Day, plants toppled over, dried out, yet producing madly, well beyond my ability or desire to continue harvesting.  Soon the huge maple in our front yard would drop a smothering load of leaves on the small lawn.  In the workplace, vacations were over and everyone buckled down once again… in other words, a time to GET BACK TO WORK!

As retired, fulltime RV’ers, Labor Day is one of our favorite holidays – once it is over.  National parks clear out as kids head back to school.  Weekend campers return their sleeping bags to shelves in the garage until next summer.  For us, it means a return to spontaneous travel, knowing we are likely to find a campsite at any park we choose to visit – no advance reservation required. 

But first we need to get through the holiday weekend!

Though we often choose an Elks Lodge to settle into for a holiday weekend, this year we decided to splurge on a high-end (for us!) RV park, Lewis & Clark Golf and RV Park in Astoria, Oregon (click here to read our review and see photos).  Astoria, celebrating it’s Bicentennial this year, is situated in northwest Oregon, where the truly mighty Columbia River meets the Pacific ocean – the farthest point of Lewis and Clark’s explorations.  The area is saturated with national and state parks, historic sites, and hikes, anchored by a charming small town filled with museums, shops and historic buildings.  Though we have seen the highlights on previous visits, I’m sure we will be leaving many sights unseen once again when we pull out on Tuesday.

We broke the trip from Eugene to Astoria into short legs, spending Thursday night at beautiful L.L. Stub Stewart State Park (click here to read our review and see photos) on the Vernonia/Banks State Trail near Banks, Oregon.  We’d heard nothing but good reviews of L.L. Stub Stewart State Park, a fairly new state park that happened to be on a route we’ve never taken - Hwy 26 from Portland to Hwy 101 on the Oregon coast - so we were looking forward to our short visit.

First day/first leg: traveling north on I-5, we hit a HUGE traffic jam, both northbound lanes of interstate 5 at a complete standstill.  We have a CB that comes in handy at times like this (and remains off the rest of the time) and we heard that both lanes were closed due to an accident.  According to CB chatter, an accident occurred at the spot where the Oregon Highway Patrol has holding a memorial for 3 OHP officers who died at that spot ten years ago. 

I later looked up a news story about the accident (which you can read here): “More than 100 people, including family members and half a dozen police and fire agencies, gathered Thursday just off Interstate 5 for the dedication of Oregon’s first highway memorial sign..” remembering two OHP officers who lost their lives in a traffic accident at that spot 10 years ago.  Ironically, the event was timed to kick off a safe driving awareness campaign over the Labor Day holiday – instead, it was delayed when a Subaru hit the back of a pickup truck as the truck driver slowed at the memorial site.  I wonder if the placement of subsequent highway memorial signs will be handled differently?

Second day/second leg: another accident, on a narrow winding stretch of Hwy 26 (the most narrow portion of the highway, which was a very good road).  This time, traffic flowed unimpeded in our direction, but a long, long traffic jam snaked up the hill in the eastbound lane, blocked by a crumpled pickup truck being loaded onto a wrecker.  Be careful out there!

We settled into a beautiful site at Lewis and Clark Golf and RV Resort at 1 pm, then spent the next few hours reading volumes of area information we’d been given at check-in – followed by a delicious dinner at Bridgewater Bistro, tucked in along the waterfront under the towering Astoria-Megler Bridge that crosses the Columbia, connecting Oregon and Washington.  Excellent way to kick off the holiday!