Mountains and Starfish and Part 6, Oh My!

Alright, so today we went to Mount Rainier, which was awesome. Mainly because there was a lot more snow than Crater Lake, and I actually got to *really* play in it, rather than just kind of prance around because my feet were freezing (I was a little more prepared in my hiking boots this time around)

Yes, that would indeed be me sitting on snow.  On purpose.  You can kind of make out my snow-angel.  I was awesomely deep snow for the first time that I can actually remember, it was pretty decently clean, and I was actually allowed on it this time, I was going to make a snow angel whether people liked it or not.


I missed most of the drive over, but I got a good look at it on the way back, because in order to get on the highway we needed to be on we had to go back to Tacoma and turn around...seriously annoying.  But we had a fabulous lunch at this little Nepalese restaurant...they had huckleberry pie.  Omnomnom.  I've been wanting to try huckleberries since I saw they existed in the Grand Canyon gift shops, and I finally got to try them.  In pie, so it's even better.  I also got huckleberry jelly beans and huckleberry coffee...the jelly beans don't taste like huckleberries...we'll see how the coffee tastes when I get back home and over to Dylan's house, because I refuse to try strange coffee without her.

Anyway, Mount Rainier is gorgeous.  I walked up about half a mile in ridiculously deep snow:

(Yes, that's a sign...that's supposed to be eye level...)

I turned around at that point, because walking uphill in deep snow is really hard, even in hiking boots, and my knees couldn't take it, dangit.  Turns out walking downhill without falling is even harder.  Then I got lost, because I missed the little sign that was as deep as the one up there telling me where the visitor center was, so I ended up on some trail in the middle of nowhere, where I couldn't see any buildings or anything besides trees and snow.  No fences, no buildings, no people, not very many footprints, and giant, steep hill of snow in front of me.  Needless to say, I was very confused.  My dad had gone up the trail a little more, and took some pictures while he was there:

Mountains and glaciers and snow, oh my!

Eventually I made my way back through my spell of being lost and found the visitor center, like the genius teenager I am.

Then we went back to Tacoma, turned around, and got all the way to Spokane before winding up at the hotel we're currently in.  On to Yellowstone tomorrow!!

...so, I just realized I forgot all about yesterday....which was kayaking to go see some orca-whales.

We didn't actually see any whales...they weren't coming out to play with me, which made me sad :(

We did see some seals, and I took a couple of awesome underwater pictures, including one of two starfish, without even looking where I was pointing the camera (because I'm a boss, duh)

Another one I took:

The mountains you can kind of see behind the haze are part of the Canadian Olympic range (I saw Canada!!) and apparently when the haze isn't there you can make out the top of Mount Olympus:

I just look so thrilled on the ferry boat back over to our car, don't I?

 And of course, part of the coastline we paddled along:

So there's that.  

Next up: Yellowstone!!

-Panda:)