Monday, July 13, 2009
(Posted Monday August 17, 2009).jpg)
Day nine took us to the place I've been dreaming about going for several years: Mt. Rainier National Park. I'm not sure where my dream originated, but I knew we had to stop there even though we only had a day. We discovered before we left Chris and Tiffani's that a major road at the south of the park was closed due to damage from the bad winter, so we were limited in what areas we could explore.
We came into the park from the East at the White River Entrance, and then wound our way through fog and mist to the Sunrise Visitors Center. I cried when we got out of the car, whether from the breathtaking beauty or wacky hormone levels due to living on junk food for over a week, I don't know. Between the snow-capped peak and colorful wildflowers, I felt like I stepped into Heidi, or maybe The Sound of Music.
From there we took a short hike to some lookouts, but our view was blocked by clouds, darn it. We waited to see if they would pass, but no luck, so we took some pictures of the kids instead. What's more beautiful--Mt. Rainier or my children (and their cousins)? Hmmmmm....
From the parking lot we got a better glimpse of Mt. Rainier, which is considered an active volcano. It is "sleeping, not dead." It could erupt at any time. And yes, I am talking about the mountain and not Kaylynn.
From Sunset, we made our way to the Ohanapecosh area at the southeastern corner of the park. The highlight there was the Grove of the Patriarchs Nature Trail.
We hiked upstream about a half a mile before come to a suspension bridge that we had to cross one at a time. This took a while with nine of us. The bridge took us to an island in the Ohanapecosh River, where giant red cedars and Douglas firs that are about 1000 years old can be seen. Amazingly, everyone had a pretty good attitude on this hike. Attitude was becoming a big issue by this time.
On the way out we got a picture by the park sign. I was so happy to have a reason to be wearing a jacket. I hear it was blazing hot in SoCal at the time. I was sad to leave, but someday we'll go back there for longer and see more of Mt. Rainier's beauty.
That night we stayed in lodge type hotel that was quaint, but had spotty internet access (I think this is when I lost my resolve to blog at the end of each day) and cold showers. We had bologna sandwiches, chips, and ice-cream bars that night. We really pamper ourselves on these road trips.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Now to the main purpose and highlight of our trip--visiting Chris and Tiffani, who ABANDONED us and moved to Washington far, far away and then had the nerve to have a BABY that we wouldn't be able to see all the time. (I can give them a hard time because they don't read our blog.) This is the first time we have been to their new house, and we had a great time visiting.
The focus of a lot of our attention was Megan, who is quite a ham and exceptionally cute.
A tent was set up in the backyard for the brave to sleep in. That only lasted one night because it was pretty cold. I slept in the basement, and eventually we had sleeping bags all over the house.
On Friday we went to Riverfront Park in Spokane, where they have carnival rides, a little train to ride, a carousel, and the biggest Radio Flyer wagon in the world.
On Saturday we crossed over into Idaho, and went to the beach at Coeur d'Alene. The kids had fun playing in the water and making sand castles. We also played at the hugest playground I have ever seen, and did a little shopping at a toy store called Figpickles.
We also visited Manito park, which had beautiful gardens and a water park. We had fun there until it started to rain AND the sprinklers came on. There are definitely no water shortages here.
Other things to remember about our stay and Chris and Tiffani's: trampoline, Megan liked Anna's Nintendogs game, popping two air mattresses, playing in the basement, Tiffani's yummy breadsticks, watching Literal Videos, taking divot out of driveway with hitch, blueberry sauce that wouldn't thicken, hiking forever to find water area at park, visiting Spokane temple, Jared not wanting to be in picture, Megan doing the chicken dance.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
I have fallen behind due to a combination of circumstances, but I need to catch up since this is taking the place of the scrapbooking that I don't plan on doing ever again. (Luckily my date doesn't show up on my posts, so I can just pretend I'm posting this on the actual day these things happened.)
Today we explored the Fruit Loop, a scenic road the hits some of the farms of the Hood River Valley. Thanks to Kaylynn's suggestion, we visited an alpaca farm. This was the highlight of her day, and we all had fun feeding the alpacas, and checking out the yarn shop, where I bought some alpaca yarn to make a hat. 
The next stop was Packer's Farm, where we bought fresh raspberries and cookies, and I just had to try a pear-sweetened marionberry turnover. We had our treats out a picnic table outside, and took some pictures by their cute signs.
We left the loop for a trip to visit Timberline Lodge, a historic hotel located on the south flank of Mt. Hood. We checked out the hotel, which had a huge fireplace in the middle of the lobby and a few historic exhibits. We had fun playing with the old-fashioned mailboxes until we realized that they were currently in use (oops!) We had trouble getting a good view of Mt. Hood because of the clouds, but managed to get a shot in the parking lot just before we were about to leave.
To get back around the mountain and back to Mt. Hood, we decided to take Lolo Pass Road. Dan told us that Lolo means crazy in Hawaiian, and we decided that we were indeed crazy to take this road. The unpaved portion had major damage and dips in the road, and we were having flashbacks of our last road trip getting stuck in a ditch in the middle of nowhere. We made it through okay, with a possible leak in the exhaust system. Anyone reading this, take our advice: If you see this sign, TURN AROUND!!!
Back on the Fruit Loop, we visited Alice's Farm, where we bought delicious cherries and took a ride on The Gator to see the cherry orchard. This farm was just beautiful, with a picnic area and a cute white house. 
Next, we stopped to pick our own blueberries. Each of the kids went off with a bucket, and all together we picked about five pints. 
After crossing the Columbia River and taking the Washington side of the Gorge, where we saw lots of trains and wind surfers, it was back to the hotel room. When the kids aren't swimming, they are usually watching TV and eating microwave popcorn.
Today was a little exhausting but worth it. The Columbia River Gorge has some great views and waterfalls. We started out at the Vista House, where there is a stunning view of the river. Here's a picture of us on the balcony:
The pictures definitely don't do justice, but here's one view with Amy and Ethan perched on a rock:
We were pretty amused by this sign at the Vista House. We were very sure to keep a tight rein on our kids:
We drove along the Historic Columbia River Drive, and you can get an idea of how windy the road is on our GPS. No puking today, though.
This is a shot of the Latourell Falls. This was supposed to be a quick stop, but Kaylynn and Jeremy took off on a trail ahead of us that had no information on distance or anything, and so we went after them. It took a while for Dan to find them, and they had a little trouble finding their way back. While they were up there they saw another waterfall, but we haven't figured out which one it is yet:
We went on a short hike to Bridal Veil Falls, even though we had promised the kids no more hikes. We're entitled to change our minds, right?
The next major waterfall was Multnomah Falls. the second tallest year-round waterfall in the U.S. There's a cute little gift shop and restaurant here, and we sampled a little bit of fudge.
After going to enough waterfalls to make the kids never want to see a waterfall again, we stopped at the Bonneville Dam. I didn't get many good pictures here but it was pretty interesting. Here is Anna in front of the fish ladder, where the fish are able to bypass the dam and make it upstream. You can tell she finds the whole thing thrilling. By this time we had a few bad attitudes.
This is the inside of the powerhouse of the dam:
Random things to remember: Jeremy sliding down stair rail at dam and hurting himself where it hurts the worst, Jeremy taking the luggage cart down the stairs instead of the elevator, buying rings and bouncy balls, watching Inkheart in the hotel room, trip to Walmart and finding not one jacket or sweatshirt, bug bites, huge slugs.
Monday, July 6, 2009
I'm trying to think of some of the other details of the day that we will want to remember down the road, but I'm drawing a blank and my brain doesn't want to function at 11:3o at night. I know I did a lot of yelling at kids to stay away from steep ledges, some grumbling about making too many stops to see the same lake, lots of mosquitoes, and pink snow.
Photos of the day:
Emily and Amy with Phantom Ship in the background. Jeremy didn't think it looked much like a ship. The water is even more blue than it looks in this picture:
Anna with her blanket wrapped around her with Wizard Island in the background. It was pretty chilly on this side of the lake, and there were a lot of patches of snow, which was pink in some areas. We never found out why:
Playing in some of the snow:
The kids sitting in front of the full-service gas station. Apparently that's how it's done in Oregon? We thought it was pretty weird to have someone else putting our gas in. Another thing about Oregon--no sales tax.
Between two cars and three drivers, we managed to drive about 12 hours to Klamath Falls, OR. We only had only one kid throw up, but it wasn't in our own car (Sorry, Lara!) We came equipped with not one, not two, but three barf buckets, but failed to send one on over to the other vehicle. We made good time, but when we got to the hotel we reserved, the pool was green, so we went elsewhere. The kids have now finished swimming and they're enjoying watching cable which they don't have at home.
Here are some pics of the day:
Mount Shasta in the background to the left:
Anna and Amy in front of Mount Shasta:
Welcome to Oregon:
We were amused by this sign at McDonalds (Yes, I know we hate McDonalds, but we needed wi-fi to find a new hotel.) "Parents are welcome to play in the toy." That just sounded funny to us:
